PERIOD 1: Females and males in post-classical China

Assignment: Create a T-Chart that examones the characterisitcs of life both females and males in China.  Determine which gender had it "worse."

The roles and expectations of females and males differed greatly in post-classical China. Below are some documents that will give you a small insight into the life of a female in post-classical China.

 Competition for a chance to take the civil service examinations began, if we may be allowed to exaggerate only a little, even before birth. On the back of many a woman's copper mirror, the five-character formula "Five Sons Pass the Examinations" expressed her heart's desire to bear five successful sons. Girls, since they could not take the examinations and become officials but merely ran up dowry expenses, were no asset to a family; a man who had no sons was considered to be childless. People said that thieves warned each other not to enter a household with five or more girls because there would be nothing to steal in it. The luckless parents of girls hoped to make up for such misfortune in the generation of their grandchildren by sending their daughters into marriage equipped with those auspicious mirrors.

 

 Prenatal care began as soon as a woman was known to be pregnant. She had to be very careful then, because her conduct was thought to have an influence on the unborn child, and everything she did had to be right. She had to sit erect, with her seat and pillows arranged in exactly the proper way, to sleep without carelessly pillowing her head on an arm, to abstain from strange foods, and so on. She had to be careful to avoid unpleasant colors, and she spent her leisure listening to poetry and the classics being read aloud. These preparations were thought to lead to the birth of an unusually gifted boy.

 

 If, indeed, a boy was born the whole family rejoiced, but if a girl arrived, everyone was dejected. On the third day after her birth, it was the custom to place a girl on the floor beneath her bed, and to make her grasp a tile and a pebble so that even then she would begin to form a lifelong habit of submission and an acquaintance with hard­ship. In contrast, in early times when a boy was born arrows were shot from an exorcising bow in the four directions of the compass and straight up and down. In later times, when literary accomplishments had become more important than the martial arts, this practice was replaced by the custom of scattering coins for servants and others to pick up as gifts. Frequently the words "First-place Graduate" were cast on those coins, to signify the highest dreams of the family and indeed of the entire clan.

 

Footbinding

In addressing the subject of footbinding, one primary difficulty becomes apparent - that much remains within the realm of the unknowable. Any factual knowledge about the practice may only be drawn from 19th- and 20th-century writings, drawings or photographs. In addition, many of these documents represent a distinctly Western point of view, as they are primarily composed of missionary accounts and the literature of the various anti -footbinding societies.[1] The historical origins of footbinding are frustratingly vague, although brief textual references suggest that small feet for women were preferred as early as the Han dynasty. The first documented reference to the actual binding of a foot is from the court of the Southern Tang dynasty in Nanjing, which celebrates the fame of its dancing girls renowned for their tiny feet and beautiful bow shoes.[2] The practice apparently became the standard for feminine beauty in the imperial court, spreading downward socially and geographically as the lower classes strove to imitate the style of the elite. [3]

In its most extreme form, footbinding was the act of wrapping a three- to five-year old girl's feet with binding so as to bend the toes under, break the bones and force the back of the foot together. Its purpose was to produce a tiny foot, the "golden lotus", which was three inches long and thought to be both lovely and alluring.[4] It is believed that the origin of the term "golden lotus" emerged in the Southern Tang dynasty,  where the emperor Li Yu ordered his favorite concubine, Fragrant Girl, to bind her feet with silk bands and dance on a golden lotus platform encrusted with pearls and gems. Thereafter, women inside and outside the court began taking up strips of cloth and binding their feet, thinking them beautiful and distinguished, dainty and elegant. It gradually became the prevailing style and "golden lotus" became a synonym for bound feet.[5]

Imperial acceptance aside, the question that remains is why did Chinese women bind their feet for approximately one thousand years, until forcibly prohibited by the government? It is important to consider the practice without criticism in order to understand the symbolic and personal meanings of footbinding, which embraced a number of purposes. Its origins may be perceived as a means of enforcing the imperial male's exclusive sexual access to his female consorts, ensuring their chastity and fidelity, but its impact extended far beyond these boundaries.[10] Since the family was the most important organizational unit in Chinese society, and the family and the state often portrayed as analogous to each other, the emperor and the empress were cast as mother and father to the people. The court's custom of keeping women hidden was echoed in urban society at large, setting standards of behavior that reduced women to a state of near-total domestic seclusion. In those urban centers, such standards were widely observed by women who aspired to elite status.[12]

 

 

 

In a society with a cult of female chastity, one primary purpose of footbinding was to limit mobility, radically modifying the means by which females were permitted to become a part of the world at large. Painfully and forcibly reducing a little girl's foot at the precise point in her life when she was expected to begin understanding the Confucian discipline of maintaining a "mindful body" reinforced her acceptance of the practice.[21] A woman's dependency on her family was made utterly manifest in her disabled feet, and she was fully expected to acquire considerable control over her pain, reflecting the ideals of civility, a mindful body and concealment. One of the primary allures of footbinding lay in its concealment, and to be acceptable a pair of small feet had to be covered by binder, socks and shoes, doused in perfurne and scented powder, and then hidden under layers of leggings and skirts.[22] Women also attended to their feet in the strictest privacy, often washing their feet separately from the rest of their body to shield themselves and others from contamination.[23] Only those privileged to the utmost intimacy were allowed to view the processes of cleansing and care, and women wore special bed slippers even if otherwise nude.[24] Much of footbinding's aura derived from this concealment of the physicality of the foot, mirroring the privacy requirements society and family placed on the individual.

                                                                                    Source: Marie Vento

                                                                                    History of Footbinding

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living as a MALE in Post-Classical China

The roles and expectations of females and males differed greatly in post-classical China. Below are some documents that will give you a small insight into the life of a male in post-classical China.

 It was thought best for a boy to start upon his studies as early as possible. From the very beginning, he was instructed almost entirely in the classics, since mathematics could be left to merchants, while science and technology were relegated to the working class. A potential grand official must study the Four Books, the Five Classics, and other Confucian works, and, further, he must know how to compose poems and write essays. For the most part, questions in civil service examinations did not go beyond these areas of competence.

When he was just a little more than three years old, a boy's education began at home, under the supervision of his mother or some other suitable person. Even at this early stage, the child's home environment exerted a great effect upon his development. In cultivated families, where books were stacked high against the walls, the baby sitter taught the boy his first characters while playing.

Formal education began at about seven years of age (or eight, counting in Chinese style). Boys from families that could afford the expense were sent to a temple, village, communal, or private school staffed by former officials who had lost their positions, or by old scholars who had repeat­edly failed the examinations as the years slipped by. Sons of rich men and powerful officials often were taught at home by a family tutor in an elegant small room located in a detached building, which stood in a courtyard planted with trees and shrubs, in order to create an atmo­sphere conducive to study.

  A class usually consisted of eight or nine students. Instruction cen­tered on the Four Books, beginning with the Analects, and the process of learning was almost entirely a matter of sheer memorization. With their books open before them, the students would parrot the teacher, phrase by phrase, as he read out the text. Inattentive students, or those who amused themselves by playing with toys hidden in their sleeves, would be scolded by the teacher or hit on the palms and thighs with his fan-shaped "warning ruler." The high regard for discipline was reflected in the saying, "If education is not strict, it shows that the teacher is lazy."

Students who had learned how to read a passage would return to their seats and review what they had just been taught. After reciting it a hundred times, fifty times while looking at the book and fifty with the book face down, even the least gifted would have memorized it. At first, the boys were given twenty to thirty characters a day, but as they became more experienced, they memorized one, two, or several hundred each day. In order not to force a student beyond his capacity, a boy who could memorize four hundred characters would be assigned no more than two hundred. Otherwise, he might become so distressed as to end by detest­ing his studies.

 

Moreover, the boys were at an age when the urge to play is strongest, and they suffered bitterly when they were confined all day in a classroom as though under detention. Parents and teachers, therefore, supported a lad, urging him on to "become a great man!" From ancient times, many poems were composed on the theme, "If you study while young, you will get ahead." The Sung emperor Chen-tsung wrote such a one:

To enrich your family, no need to buy good land:

Books hold a thousand measures of grain.

For an easy life, no need to build a mansion:

In books are found houses of gold.

Going out, be not vexed at absence of followers:

In books, carriages and horses form a crowd;

Marrying, be not vexed by lack of a good go-between:

In books there are girls and faces of jade.

A boy who wants to become a somebody

Devotes himself to the classics, faces the window, and reads.

 

 

The end result of all this schooling and intense preparation was the passing of the civil exams.  However, the success rates of these exams were extremely small: During the Tang Dynasty the passing rate was about two percent. The personal suffering that individuals underwent both in the preparation and in the taking of these exams has become part of Chinese lore. Candidates were known to repeatedly fail exams. Some committed suicide because of the disgrace that these failures brought to their families. Others continued taking exams even as very old, grey-haired men. Basically a man’s entire life was centered around passing the exam and you stress about a global test.