OTHER PARTS

Non-Confucian texts from the Chinese imperial era, both secular and religious, provide very different models of womanhood to those commonly-portrayed by Western scholarship. We have seen above that in Taoist and Buddhist religious texts there are powerful goddesses, immortals and female seers who provide a strong model. These characters can be formidable warriors, strong-willed champions of their fellow women or simply pro-active and strong females living lives according to their own desires and aims.

Looking at the post-Song popular and semi-popular secular literature (which we must not forget was written once neo-Confucianism was already well established) shows a wide range of characters far from Confucian norms. Most striking are the warrior women, who as Kingston noted provided a powerful model, not so much for emulation as for indication that women could take matters into their own hands.

But perhaps even more interesting are the more "normal" women who appear in these texts. They are often well educated, loved and cherished by their parents, and able to have very considerable influence in their own destiny. They are able to follow even their sexual desires and not infrequently dominate male members of their household. Moving then to our survey of "real lives", it shows many women active in the literature and painting, some coming from family backgrounds strong in such areas but others made their own way in the artistic world. There is also ample evidence above that women, at least those from the very top social groups, were able, like their brothers, fathers and sons, to play prominent roles in politics. Finally the few more personal accounts we have from recent times show lives that are not much different from our own. The externals may be different but Kwei-li loves her husband, is treated kindly by his family, loves her child, and at a relatively young age effectively rules a large and complex household not incomparable to a large business.

So where do these pictures, so different from the traditional model of oppressed submission, take us in terms of the overall model of the "real" Chinese woman?

Firstly, before answering this question, there are a couple of important remarks to be made about Confucianism. As already discussed above, in Western scholarship about China much has been made of the place of women at the bottom of the Confucian hierarchy and the stress on the bearing of sons which has seen it linked with very different societies with similar family structures, particularly Muslim and Hindu. Confucius in addition stressed the place of virtue as a political force which tended to have a negative effect on the position of women . Both these factors no doubt did have a negative effect on the position of women in imperial China.

But less-remarked is the fact the Confucian system offered women one highly important advantage not available to females living in most other cultures. There was what Weidner described as "the built-in tension between the principles of female submission and those of filial piety".

Kwei-li writes there is no one more autocratic than a mother in her own home. "Her sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver." She writes of an man appointed to an important diplomatic post in London who declined because "his mother was old and did not wish her only son to journey o'er the seas". Perhaps a more extreme example is that of the Emperor Qianlong, who spent a huge sum on a stupa to house his mother's hair. More formally, the legal system stated that if the division of a family property was inevitable after a father's death, the mother's permission had to be obtained if the deceased had not indicated clear wishes in the matter which could be proven (probably the bulk of cases).

Finally, when considering real lives, there's a very important point about the Confucian system which often seems to be forgotten when family power structures are discussed. Men were also locked into strictly hierarchical relations, both within and outside the family. Older always took precedence (and usually power) over younger, with status divided into generational layers. Thus a man might have to wait until his father died, or at least entered his dotage, before gaining any real influence or power. As Yang states "not until the fourth decade in one's life would one begin to gain serious consideration from senior members in the age hierarchy".

Finally, Confucianism prescribed a strict segregation of the sexes. As we have seen above this was not so absolute as the puritans would have wished, but there is no doubt it was the basic norm wherever this could be afforded. Kwei-li wrote "a man's official life and that which lies within his women's courtyard are as separate as two pathways which never meet". We know now that there was even, at least in some parts of China, a unique women's language, oral and written, which was unknown to men. The Book of Rites states ""Men do not talk about internal [domestic] affairs and women do not talk about external affairs ...men walk on the right and women on the left". What we have here is a picture of separate, parallel lives.

More recent scholarship is hesitantly coming towards a similar conclusion. Ching Chung says that the male and female spheres "operated independently, with little intrusion upon each other (so) men and women had position within their own spheres". Because of this fact, many powerful positions were offered to women, and with them powerful role models for the generations who followed. We have seen how Kwei-li in her early 20s ruled a household comparable in complexity to a medium-sized company, how the strongest women in the imperial household governed something far larger, and how Buddhist nuns and Taoist adepts were able to hold their own in religious battles.

Because women's lives were separate, they needed their own "rulers", female rulers. And it is not hard how to imagine power acquired, or even simply observed, in this arena might be transferred onto a wider stage, the widest possible in the case of the Empress Wu.

Thus it seems only some elements in Confucianism have been stressed in the traditional studies. Yes it can be an oppressive doctrine, but this oppression is not applied solely to women. Secondly, the very central tenet, the key on which it is based, filial piety, offers when considerable potential power and influence in their later years. Thirdly, and perhaps most essentially, it offered a major sphere of life, the household or harem, from which men were almost totally excluded, giving women the chance to learn to grasp and exercise power, or imagine themselves in that role. We are starting to approach a very different picture of imperial Chinese womanhood to the traditional one. But, a critic might say, what about footbinding, the topic so often mentions when Chinese women's "oppression" is raised? An admiration for women who took simple, measured and graceful steps went back to the earliest roots of Chinese history. But there is bountiful evidence to at least the end of the Tang that this extended no further than an admiration of natural beauty.

There is now little argument the practice began in the Southern Tang rule of Li Yu (reign 961-76) among palace dancers, who originally must have only slightly restricted their feet, since they were able to perform their craft. The practice spread slowly, and it was only during the Yuan dynasty that it reached the centre and south of the country, although it was estimated by the 1830s between five to eight out of every 10 females had bound feet, depending on the region. But it should not be forgotten in considering the overall position of Chinese women, we are talking about the practice being reasonably widespread (but probably restricted to only a small elite) for perhaps 500 years. That's much less than a sixth of the long period of Chinese imperial history.

There is not space here to explore the puzzling "why" question which surely deserves serious modern consideration. There is what is to Western eyes a puzzling, but seemingly very powerful erotic attraction. van Gulik suggests it could be best described as fetishism and best approached from a psychological angle.

But centrally there is very much a practical consideration of which the Chinese themselves were well aware. As a provincial proverb went: "Bound feet, bound feet, past the gate can't retreat." Women were well aware of this restrictive aim and in some cases campaigned against the practice. It tied in well with the strict neo-Confucian ethics, but perhaps its necessity was an indication that these ethics alone did not prove successful into directing women's lives into the paths of which the ethicists would have approved.

Footbinding is important, and it was no doubt for most women agonising and constricting, but it is something which must not be overplayed in the overall picture of Chinese women's lives. We should not forget or downplay it, but neither should the bound foot be seen as a metaphor for Chinese women's lives throughout the imperial era. It has been stated above that myth, religious stories and fiction can be both a model for their readers, as well as a reflection of them. The sort of women which appear in the imperial Chinese texts thus suggest both that women had access to, and were able to emulate, models of warriors, of scholars, of independent active lives.

Confucianism, although it did not accept such lives, left open windows of opportunity for their development. Thus, this writer is convinced that the traditional model of the downtrodden, oppressed and weak woman is profoundly misleading. It may have been accurate in many cases, but as a starting point for theories about the lives of Chinese women it is fundamentally flawed.

Instead the starting point, the thesis from which we might look for deviations or variations, should be absolutely different. I would suggest it should be of two parallel, largely independent societies, male and female. Within that female environment there are scholars and tyrants, weak and strong, warrior and victim, largely impacting on and interacting with only their own sex.