Women In China During The Long Eighteenth Century

Women In China During “The Long Eighteenth Century” During the 18th Century women in China continued to be subordinated and subjected to men. Their status was maintained by laws, official policies, cultural traditions, as well as philosophical concepts. The Confucian ideology of “Thrice Following” identified to whom a women must show allegiance and loyalty as she progressed throughout her life-cycle: as a daughter she was to follow her father, as a wife she was to …

…Mann 62) Stories and biographies of faithful widows remind us time and again that the learned woman who survived her husband must not celebrate her longevity. She knew from her classical studies that she was the wei wang ren, “the person who had not yet died.” Having survived her spouse, she was required to rear his sons and support his parents, but on no account could she revel in her passage to old age alone. (Mann 67)