Organizer: Anne Behnke Kinney, University of Virginia
Chair: Margaret J. Pearson, Skidmore College
Discussant: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Illinois
For the last twenty years scholars have made tremendous strides in understanding the role of women in premodern Chinese history and civilization. Nevertheless, most scholarship has focused on women from the Song dynasty onward, while scholars are only beginning to explore the history of women in antiquity. The most exciting aspect of this new field of sinological inquiry is the rich array of paleographic sources which archaeologists have brought to light in the last several decades, i.e., Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, Zhou bronze texts, Qin bamboo manuscripts and silk books from the Han dynasty. This panel will therefore (1) provide a brief overview of the kinds of paleographic sources that contain information about women in early China, (2) describe how these sources supplement information found in traditionally transmitted sources, (3) discuss the ways in which paleographic sources challenge views found in both current scholarship and traditionally received texts, and (4) show the ways in which understanding women in early China can contribute to a deeper understanding of ancient Chinese history in general. The papers presented on this panel will present new ways of thinking about the role of women in kinship systems of the Zhou dynasty, fresh perspectives on the construction of gender in the Yijing, and will also explore the ways in which women figured in Qin and Han law. Our discussant will then talk about the implications of this new information for our understanding of both early Chinese history in general and of the history of women in mid- to late Imperial China.
Out of the Stone Age: Women in the Shang Bone Inscriptions
David N. Keightley, University of California, Berkeley
After a brief review of the Neolithic and Shang mortuary evidence, which provides some data on sex ratios, vital statistics, and marriage patterns, the paper addresses the status of Late Shang women (ca. 1200-1050 BCE) as seen in divination inscriptions and burials. Concluding that little information can be gained from a study of the Shang graph forms themselves, the paper concentrates on the only women for whom epigraphic documentation, on both bone and bronze, exists: the consorts and other women whose status was sufficiently high to attract the attention of the king and his diviners. These women, such as Fu Hao (whose unrifled tomb was excavated in 1976), figured in a sufficiently wide range of royal concerns-dreams, sickness, childbearing, military mobilizations, and cult-to suggest that their role in the structure of elite Shang society was not minimal. This is particularly evident in the strategic role the ancestresses played in the five-ritual sacrificial schedule, the independent character of their system of temple-names, the generous cult that some consorts received, the existence of a small number of temples dedicated to royal consorts, and, in the case of Fu Hao, at least, the richness of her burial. The information in the inscriptions throws some light on the marriage system of the Late Shang, the differing status of consorts and their progeny, and on the various lineage groups whose members composed the core of the Shang state. The status of the elite women must always be considered in the fuller context of the status of the elites in general, men as well as women.
Slaves, Wives and Queens in Zhou Period China
Constance A. Cook, Lehigh University
The traditional zongfa kinship paradigm outlines a patrilineal chain of command that supports not only a Confucian notion of patriarchy for ancient China but seems to find support in the transmitted pre-Qin texts. While paleographical texts do not challenge the fundamental image of a male-dominated early China, they do provide enough evidence to suggest that the role of women in this society has not only been undervalued but, in some cases, completely misinterpreted. This paper focuses on questions concerning the political and religious roles of women that arise when evidence from paleographical and other archaeological materials is compared with tales from the transmitted texts. These questions suggest that the zongfa system is not an adequate model for complete understanding of ancient Chinese society and that other models which account for an active female role must be examined.
The Key and the Flow: Drying Out the Wet Women of the Yijing's Xici Zhuan
Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago
The Xici zhuan or "Appended Statements Commentary" (also known as the Great Commentary) portrays the Yijingas a microcosm of the phenomenal world. It further portrays the Yijing's first two hexagrams-Qian and Kun-when taken together, as a microcosm of the Yijing itself, with Qian representing the hard, male, heavenly principle and Kun representing the soft, female, earthly principle. Familiar as these representations have become within Chinese culture, there is nothing in these names of the hexagrams that would suggest such great importance. However, the recent publication of the Mawangdui manuscript version of the Xici zhuan, which dating to about 175 B.C. is far and away the earliest direct evidence of the text, indicates that the original names of the hexagrams may have been Jian, "The Key," and Chuan, "The Flow," and that the names refer, perhaps primarily, to the male and female genitalia. Other variora within the manuscript text suggest interpretations for lines that have long puzzled readers of the Xici: rather than Qian being known through ease and Kun being capable through simplicity, we now have "The Key" making itself known through overflowing liquid and "The Flow" becoming potent through the crack; and rather than Qian being concentrated when at rest and straight when in motion, we now have "The Key" being curled when at rest and straight when in motion (as for the female principle, whether called Kun or "The Flow," the text has always described it as closed when at rest and open when in motion). In this paper, I will discuss these descriptions and how their corporal origins, which, after all, come in the course of praising the procreative functions of the Way, have been obscured by the metaphysics of the received text.
Rough Justice: Women in an Early Han Casebook
Susan Weld, Harvard Law School
Among other legal and ritual documents found in 1983 in Han grave #247 at Zhangjiashan, near Jiangling in Hubei Province, was the "Zouxianshu," a collection of 22 exemplary decisions circulated by the central government to help local legal officials decide difficult cases. Of these 22 cases, five are of particular interest with respect to the law's treatment of women.
Two cases illustrate judicial disagreement about the impact of strict enforcement of the registration laws in the first decades of the Han. In case 2, the slave-woman Mei, freed by Han edict because of her surrender to Han forces in the Qin-Han interregnum, failed to take the crucial bureaucratic step of registering herself as a free person. As a result, one judge held her legally liable to recapture and sale by her old master, despite her poignant testimony: "I felt that I did not deserve to be returned to slavery, so I ran away." Another opinion, however, was that she should now be free to register herself as a commoner. Did this case turn on whether Mei was looked on more as property than as a person?
Another pair of cases illustrate the Han state's interest in protecting and, in some instances, manipulating women as property owners. Case 3 enforces the dynasty's policy of controlling the residences and marriage alliances of women belonging to the princely lineages of the Warring States period. Case 22, which reads like a detective story, reveals a state willing to invest a surprising amount of time and resources in the investigation and prosecution of an incident of violent robbery of a woman on her way home from market.
Most interesting is case 21, in which a single judicial officer succeeded in overturning the conclusion of 30 others that a widow who committed fornication behind her former husband's coffin (despite the presence of her mourning mother-in-law!) was liable to serve as a convict laborer. Citing relevant statutes and reasoning by way of a series of analogies, this officer argued that a wife's legal duty to her husband dies with him: a result seriously at odds with later legal theory.