Organizer: Lily Hwa, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Chair: Robert Cutter, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Discussant: Patricia Ebrey, University of Illinois, Urbana
The life of traditional Chinese women, particularly in late imperial China or the post-T'ang era, has received considerable attention. However, T'ang women, by and large, have been overlooked. In the T'ang there is much evidence women were not sedate or submissive: not only did princesses and empresses compete for power at court, but divorce by mutual consent was permitted by law and women rode on horseback. At the same time, the T'ang was the period when one of the most rigid Confucian educational texts for women was written. This panel brings together three papers that address the conflicting and interrelated theme of female influence and female confinement to better our understanding of traditional Chinese women and the process of their Confucianization.
The rise of China' s only female ruler, Empress Wu and the powerful princesses who maintained official establishments in their own residences could only attribute to a society tolerant of female influence. Using historical records as well as contemporary tales, popular works and travel records which reveal the vision of matriarchal kingdoms, Jennifer Jay's paper, "Imagining Matriarchy: Constructing Kingdoms of Women in the T'ang," discusses the ambition and drive of powerful imperial T'ang women whose behavior was in total contrast to both the Confucian norm of women and the conduct of later traditional women.
While powerful women aspired to be the head of state, some other T'ang females, especially the female entertainers, were in service for sex and entertainment. Laxity in sexuality was a prominent feature in the aristocratic T'ang society. Victor Xiong's paper, "Female Entertainers Under the Tang," explores this less known and exotic social and sexual relationship between male and female. It traces the social and cultural factors such as urbanization and a hedonistic spirit that promoted and sustained this social establishment in T'ang China.
The transition from females who strove to create matriarchy to females who promoted subjugation to males reflected a drastic change of perceptions on women. Lily Hwa in her paper, "From The Female Classic of Filial Piety to The Female Analects: The Changing Perceptions of T'ang Female Education," studies this change of perception from two female educational texts of the T'ang dynasty. The Female Classic of Filial Piety written during the reign of Emperor Hsuan tsung when women were politically influential promoted the making of an active and learned imperial lady who studied Confucian classics and advised her husband on affairs of state. The Female Analects, written in the post-An-Shih Rebellions (755-763) reflects the reforming mood of the time. It reacted against female influence and confined women to inner quarters and to servility. Hwa compares these two texts and brings in contemporary political and cultural developments in her discussion.
Hwa also applies the rules of behavior in The Female Analects to analyze the enigmatic conduct of the Female protagonist Ts'ui Ying-ying in the T'ang short story, "The Tale of Ying-ying." In doing so Hwa examines the process of female subjugation and the Confucianization of them.
Professor Patricia Ebrey, a distinguished scholar on Chinese women, will be the discussant while Professor Robert Cutter known for his work on Chinese women in poetry will be the chair.
Jennifer Jay, University of Alberta, Edmonton
During 684-712, Empresses Wu Zetian and Wei, and Princesses Changping and Anle harbored imperial ambitions of becoming emperors. Both standard and unofficial sources have been quick to condemn the gender reversals, sexual excesses and usurpative power of these women as unprecedented and uncivilized.
In the lifetime of these women, knowledge of kingdoms of women (nu'er guo) was imparted through the Shanhai jing, standard histories, and travel records such as Xuanzang's Xiyu ji. In these regions, now vaguely identified as in present-day eastern and western Tibet, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Thailand, the kingdoms were so-named either on the basis that no men were present in the population of these self-contained societies, or on the basis that women and their female descendants served as heads of both state and society. These kingdoms later inspired imaginations of such matriarchies in novels such as Xiyou ji, Sanbao taijian xia xiyang, and Jinghua yuan.
This paper proposes to identify and describe these kingdoms of women as they were known to have existed during the Tang. It seeks to examine the connection between the powerful Tang imperial women and the discourse on the known matriarchal kingdoms of the time.
Victor C. Xiong, Western Michigan University
Etymologically, the two most used Chinese characters for entertainers chang and ji are of relatively innocent origins. The character chang-entertainer was originally a variant of the character chang-singing as recorded in the Book of Poetry (see Maoshi zhengyi 4.3). The character ji-entertainer was originally used in the meaning of "company," although it was also popularly used as a variant of the character ji-skill (see Shuowen jiezi zhu 8:29). Women in the performing arts sometimes took a less inhibited view of sex, and entertainment was often accompanied by prostitution. Thus out of necessity, the designations for women entertainers, chang and ji, came to be linked with prostitution.
The Tang dynasty is the first period in Chinese history that offers the possibility for an in-depth study of the ji-entertainers and prostitution. Based on the earliest extant source on organized prostitution Beili zhi, and other primary sources, the ji-entertainers of this period may be classified as follows: gongji (court entertainers), guanji (official entertainers), yingji (army entertainers), jiaji (private entertainers), and Beili ji (bordello entertainers).
With the development of China's first red-light district on record, female entertainment and its corollary prostitution came into its own in Tang times. Its rise in big cities like Chang'an is attributable to a number of reasons. First of all, a permissive atmosphere prevailed inside and outside the court. Generally speaking, society showed tolerance toward entertainers and prostitutes. Second, a hedonistic spirit took hold in society. Emperors and commoners, warriors and scholars, all indulged in sensual pleasures. Third, prostitution often operated under cover of entertainment, making it less offensive to an already permissive society. Lastly, sustained progress in urbanization brought about the concentration of wealth and population in the city, which contributed to a thriving entertainment business.
Lily Hwa, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
In the history of Chinese women, the T'ang dynasty is known not only for women who contended for political power, but also for women's educational texts. Two important female educational texts which became part of the Female Four Books, The Female Classic of the Filial Piety by Lady Cheng and The Female Analects by Lady Sung Jo-hua (also called Sung Jo hsin in some sources), were written during the T'ang. These two books, while both are of a Confucian nature, convey different images of women. This paper compares these two texts to study the changing perceptions of T'ang women. In doing so, it also studies the contemporary political, social and cultural developments which contributed to this change of view.
Written during the same dynasty one hundred years apart, these two books created two different worlds for women. The Female Classic of Filial Piety instructed the making of a wise and learned lady who was politically active. She studied Confucian classics, advised husbands of affairs of state, managed family and relatives, and served the in-laws with propriety. Female submissiveness and obedience preached by Pan Chao of the Han dynasty in the Female Admonition was missing in this text. The Female Analects, however, discussed weaving, cleaning, household work and the serving of parents, husband, and in-laws which the author considered to be the world of women. Women were not encouraged to study. Where they went, how they acted and what they said, were all sternly regulated. The women in the Female Analects, were molded into the Confucian submissive females of the inner quarters. As women were authors for both texts, the differences seem to derive from socio-political rather than from a gender perspective.
These two texts, with The Classic of Female Filial Piety written before the An-Shih rebellions (755-763) and The Female Analects afterwards, may be seen as reflections of two different socio-political climates-the early and later T'ang dynasty-polarized by the An-Shih Rebellions. This paper thus explores the connections between The Classic of Female Filial Piety and the prevailing political influence of the imperial women in early T'ang. It also studies The Female Analects with a number of mid-to-late T'ang developments, such as the dwindling of female political power, the reaction against influential women, the revival in Confucianism and the changing concepts of family ethics.
The process of Confucianization of female inevitably involved tension, contradiction and adjustment especially in the T'ang when females had already enjoyed considerable power and freedom. This paper also compares rules from The Female Analects to the conduct of Ts'ui Ying-ying, the female protagonist in "The Tale of Ying-ying," written some twenty years after the firm circulation of The Female Analects. Ying-ying's behavior becomes less enigmatic when seen in the light of the tension between the relatively open contemporary mores and a conservative Confucian education.
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