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The Negative Impacts of Confucianism on Women in Ancient China

Confucianism is a word derived from the name K’ung Confucius, an ancient Chinese philosopher (551BC – 479BC), whose teachings are the backbone of the Chinese belief and their way of life (Confucius, 2005). Unlike religion, the Confucian theory is based on social and ethical philosophy; its liturgical experts being parents, teachers and officials and the institutions represented by school, family, society and state. It has been referred to as ‘diffused religion’ by Chinese sociologists. His words are used up to date to guide character and decisions and to determine the qualifications of a good son, spouse and citizen; ensuring everyone understood their role in society and played it as expected; those of a lower stature respecting the ones in authority and the latter being pious to the former. The Confucian theory was mainly based on five basic relations; sovereign to subjects, father to son, husband to wife, older brother to younger brother and friend to friend (Confucius, 2005). According to Confucius (2005), “…morality is a question of satisfying one’s role in society”. This paper will particularly focus on discussing the negative implications of the Confucian theory on the Women of Ancient China.

As the case in many societies, the role of women in Ancient China was basically tied to their kinship roles. As implied, women’s major role during this time was to cater for the needs of closely related men i.e., their fathers when young, their husband when married and their sons after the death of their husbands. They had been viewed as loyal, devoted and courageous but at the same time manipulative, selfish and intriguing, depending on how it suited them. Confucianism, therefore, was aimed at helping all members of society realize their role and stick to it. It was later linked to the Yin and Yang philosophy in that, women were Yin and men were Yang (Theodore, 2009). Yin was characterized as soft, passive, receptive, tranquil, submissive and reflective, traits that were mostly associated with women (Theodore, 2009). Yang on the other hand was hard, assertive, dominating and active, traits commonly linked to males (Theodore, 2009). Therefore, just as Yin and Yang were complementary, men and women were expected to be complementary. This meant that women were required to fill in the weaker points of men, forming a complete, fully functional, minimally flawed society.

As positive and functional as it sounds, Confucianism had an evil twin ‘sexism.’ Evidently, the whole theory is based on understanding and respecting ranks. This means that an individual’s status in life remained stationary throughout his or her lifetime. In this regard, it is important to note that women were more disadvantaged. In essence, from the time of their birth their arrival was less celebrated than the birth of a boy. The necessity of a son brought a lot of disappointment for the parents of a daughter (Theodore, 2009). Essentially the suppression of the girl child was the backbone of the Confucian theory.

Moreover, the females and males were raised and taught separately, in an attempt to maintain the position of Yin and Yang, just to ensure that the males retained their status so that they are never dominated by the Yin. This extended to their homes; the physical structures thereto were built in a way to ensure that the girls were kept in the inner section of the house and the boys in the outer section (Goucher & Walton, 2013). This practice was widespread in the ancient Chinese society to the extent that there was the belief that women could never participate in public affairs (Goucher & Walton, 2013). They were, therefore, left with the job of tending to the internal affairs of the home and matters that were closely related to homely affairs. One instance, during a conversation with King Wu, who had told him earlier of his ten able ministers, he said “… yet there was a woman among them. The able ministers were no more than nine men,” implying that the tenth minister couldn’t be considered as ‘able’ since she was a woman (Theodore, 2009). He essentially laid emphasis on the belief that women were not able to handle public affairs by nature.

Based on the invisible status quo policy in the ancient Chinese society, the senior male was the head of the family. This system is the founder of the Chinese basic family unit; the authority of the family’s head being paramount (Rosenlee, 2012). Upon his death, the mantle would fall on the son. However, a woman could head the family if her husband died pre-maturely, until the sons were old enough to take over (Rosenlee, 2012). Furthermore, a woman had no right to call for divorce unless it was mutually agreed. A man, however, could divorce his wife on grounds of jealousy, barrenness or talkativeness among other reasons (Rosenlee, 2012). It is also important to note that upon divorce or bereavement a woman was not allowed to remarry. Her husband could have a second wife if he saw it fit but the wife could only marry once. Some women whose husbands died and left them childless opted for suicide since they were not allowed to remarry. Many whose fiancés died chose to move to their parents’ homes and serve them as daughters-in-law until their death instead of moving on with a different man (Rosenlee, 2012). This basically goes to show that the men had a higher standing and could easily undermine the women in their lives inconsequentially.

A woman was expected to be as invisible as she could possibly be. This means that a woman could be considered good if she was quiet and hidden; only seen when it was absolutely necessary. This was one major flaw of the Confucian theory. It meant that women were at their best when they were untalented and unmotivated and the only hope for them was to bring up men who were talented and of great use to the society; this was a woman’s ultimate source of respect. This was further encouraged by one of the neo-Confucius’ sayings, “It will be women’s neither to do wrong nor to do good. Only about the spirits and the food will they have to think,” which insinuated that women were expected to think of nothing but the upbringing and sustenance of the men, by doing so, they would automatically be ‘doing good’ as they ought to (Rosenlee, 2012).

“We should not be too familiar with the lower orders or with women,” is another one of neo-Confucius’ quotes (Rosenlee, 2012). It is easy to see that from his point of view, there was little difference between servants and women. He considered the role of women in society as that not far from a slave’s role or that of a pauper. He viewed them as unteachable, unappeasable and as a result, not instructable. He implied that if a man was too lenient with a woman, she would lose her humility and if he was too firm, she would be dissatisfied; further implying that women are insatiable. Therefore, the easiest way to handle them would be to view them as servants, defining their role and ensuring they stick to it through passing them down as virtues through generations; associating beauty with gentleness and meekness.

One teaching that is surprisingly ridiculous to the modern feminist is that a woman’s husband is like heaven itself; a woman should live to find ways to be more yielding towards her husband. This is line of thought not only affected ancient Chinese women, but also the ancient woman in the general sense. Many women still view marriage as the ‘holy grail’ of womanhood, that without a husband, woman is incomplete. This encouraged the thought that women were to be led and not followed and that the only thing that could arise from a woman ruler was disorder and chaos. Therefore, women were confined in their fathers’ houses and upon marriage, in their husbands’ houses as tradition demanded; seeking only the happiness and satisfaction of her master, her husband.

In addition, the woman’s position in her house was determined by her male heirs. According to the family system, male heirs could render a fertile, male-bearing concubine of higher status than a girl-bearing wife. This would obviously not be easy to handle, knowing well that women are naturally aggressively jealous. Therefore, a wife was considered good if she could meekly submit to her husband and look at the needs of the family as a whole instead of looking at the concubines as a threat to her position in the family. This could be hard to achieve maybe until grandmotherhood, where a woman could easily see the wellbeing of the whole family rather than her own offspring. Therefore, women with meek, self-sacrificing personalities in the society were highly praised and emulated. This negatively affected the women in society as they had to learn to watch quietly as their husbands committed morally outrageous acts since it was the only way to earn the respect of the community (Goucher & Walton, 2013).

One thing that the Confucian theory insisted upon is the evil nature of the women; that women had to go above and beyond to have morally acceptable behavior. In fact, exemplary acts of selflessness such as self-sacrifice in instances where they had to choose between their husbands and fathers, gave good advice to their husbands or acts of heroism were published in Biographies of Exemplary Women by Ban Zhao an admirable, well-educated woman from a prominent family (Kinney, 2014). The aim was to encourage future generations of wives and daughters to emulate such characters in an attempt to create foster more submission and less inclusion of women in the public affairs. As a result, most girls tried to master the seven virtues she deemed appropriate for a proper woman; resignation, humility, self-abasement, subservience, industry, cleanliness and obedience, in another one of her books, Admonitions for Women (Kinney, 2014).

Some traditional practices seemed to have emerged as a long term effect of Confucianism. One, mentioned earlier, was the pressure on widows not to remarry. They were forced to find more fulfilling work such as the pious ones who dedicated their lives to chanting sutras or less pious ones who ran inns. Another practice that wasn’t a direct recommendation from the Confucian teachers but was developed by the women in an attempt to beautify themselves was foot binding. It involved binding the feet of girls of age five to eight using long strips of cloth in an attempt to inhibit the foot’s growth and make it arched and narrow. This attempt to beautify these young girls was so that they could be deemed attractive by their prospective suitor, in a further attempt to help them look meeker and therefore effectively play their roles as submissive meek wives, desirable and admirable as expected by society (Ko, Haboush, & Piggott, 2003).  These practices could have been acceptable but the painful process of foot binding an unaware child just for marriage, in the modern society, is deemed sexist and less empowering to the 21^st century liberated woman. In ancient China though, this was a rite of passage.

One famous proverb that is used to summarize the Confucian theory in the neo-Confucian world is, “A woman ruler is like a hen crowing,” (Rosenlee, 2012). This is alluding to the fact that cocks have been known to crow since the beginning of time. The fact that hens cannot crow goes to show that the crow, according to Confucius’s followers, is superior in its crowing task, rendering the hen with the task of laying eggs and catering for offspring. Needless to say, the sexist insinuation of this proverb was the life of the ancient Chinese women. They were expected to talk only when talked to and their major role was emphasized as bringing forth offspring and caring for them until their death. One can only imagine how it must have felt for the barren women or those who bore girls only.

Sexism seems to have plagued the world since time memorial; Christians and their belief that ‘sin’ came from Eve who is believed to have been the first woman is an example from the world’s most dominant religion of the world’s depiction of females (Berthrong, 1994): Just like it is emphasized in Confucianism, women are believed to be the source of all evil and the need to suppress their thoughts and actions is deemed as the only way to create a functional society. Although in modern China, the case is no longer so as women are allowed to go to work and own property. However, traces of this belief can be seen all over the world as women are still viewed as lesser than men. In ancient China, women had to struggle through slavery and servanthood and could never be seen as anything more than the bearers of sons. In my opinion, the elimination of Confucianism may not really be a solution: However, banishment of such philosophies that deem women as of less relevance in the society must be abolished if we are to grow into a self-sufficient people, not held back by feminism, male chauvinism or any other problem arising from sexism.