HY2206: China's Imperial Past

Author(s)

The following work was submitted for a mid-term exercise where students chose a primary text to analyse. This student chose to respond to the prompt, ” Discuss how Medieval Chinese in the Song dynasty perceived
women.” For her primary text, she looked at: “Women and the Problems They Create,” trans. Patricia Ebrey,
Chinese Civilization: A Source Book, pp. 164-68.

Across the text, a theme surrounding women and financial power emerges. Women’s portrayals with relation to financial power can be classified into three levels: passive recipients of financial power, active procurers of income and lastly, distributors of finance. I argue that the Medieval Chinese of the Song dynasty perceived women as capable managers when circumstances demanded them to take charge of finance, although women were not expected to be responsible for money.  

At the lowest level of their relationship with financial power, women were presented as passive recipients. Passive recipients received financial power through the dowry bestowed by their maiden family upon marriage, their husband’s allowance or rulings by the law. In “Wang Balang’s Wife”, the titular woman “had to pawn or sell little by little everything she had stored in her cases” when abandoned by her husband (p. 165). Since she resorted to selling valuables to gain money for survival, the woman likely had no source of personal income, nor access to any household funds. Her husband’s anger upon seeing the items sold suggests that they belonged not to her but to him, perhaps having been entrusted into her care (p. 165). This concept of women’s passive financial power taking the form of profitable items is referenced elsewhere in the text, as women “[leaving] valuables in trunks” was a common enough occurrence for authorities to investigate claims of said valuables being unrightfully pocketed by relatives upon death (p. 168). It is unclear whether the items were dowry-derived or allotted by a husband, but this example too supports that women held financial power through passive possession of valuables.  

But private life was not the only avenue for women in the Song dynasty to receive financial power. The public sphere too dispensed it through the law. ““Chaste Woman” Shi”’s eponymous protagonist “was granted 100,000 cash” by the “local officials” for supposedly successfully defending her virtue (p. 166). The sardonically punctuated title suggests that the author intended to cast Miss Shi as the story’s villain – therefore, her reward may have been exaggerated for dramatic irony. However, women’s right to be passive recipients of financial power by law is further illustrated by an instance of Wang Balang’s wife being granted half of the property by the county court magistrate upon divorce (p. 165). Women were therefore able to hold money and valuables in a personal capacity, even outside of a household setting.  

Regardless of the avenue of money, these examples provide evidence of women possessing financial power through passive reception of money and valuable items. This form of financial power was expected to be given to married women by their maternal family and husband – in the form of dowry and for safekeeping respectively – or as compensation by law. Notably, however, these portrayals of women being passive recipients were limited to only married women with living husbands.  

On the next an intermediate level of their relationship with financial power, women were portrayed as active procurers of income. In contrast to the instances of passive recipients of financial power, the women depicted as actively procuring income were mostly either widows or unmarried. The widowed Miss Wu “[earned] perhaps a hundred cash a day” through a variety of manual labor for her neighbors (p. 166). Similarly, Wang Balang’s divorced wife grew her income to “100,000 strings” through selling “jars and jugs” (p. 165). The reappearance of the same sum of “100,000” in currency within the text again suggests it may be an arbitrary sum used by the author to signify a great fortune. Therefore, the amount of income women were able to earn in the Song Dynasty may not be as great as the text indicates. Regardless, both examples portray women entering the working life because of adversity – namely, being newly without a husband. An exception to this rule is a mention of married female servants – who are advised to be returned to their husbands by the author (p. 168). Again, women who earned their income are portrayed as individual agents, separate from their spouses even if they exist. This suggests that while it was socially acceptable for women in the Song dynasty to actively procure income, those who did so were perceived as having been forced into work by unfortunate circumstances – such as being widowed, divorced or having a husband who was incapable of financially sustaining the family.  

But regardless of the means through which women gained financial power, they were not expected to play a role in its distribution. In contrast to the details with which the author described women earning income in various ways, women’s management of their income was only briefly mentioned. The aforementioned fortune earned by Wang Balang’s wife is wholly given to her son-in-law’s family, presumably as her daughter’s dowry (p. 165). Miss Wu’s money, both earned from mortal work and immortal bestowment, is “kept for her mother-in-law’s use” (p. 166). Both women are the sole breadwinners of their families – as a divorcee and a widow respectively – but they seem to have little autonomy in deciding how their earned income is spent. Nor do they appear to be the main beneficiaries of their work, as the financial power is passed on to their children or elders.  

When women are described as distributors of finance, it is in unfortunate circumstances. The author admits that some women take up management of household finances in the absence of capable husbands. “Some wives with stupid husbands are able to manage the family’s finances, calculating the outlays and receipts of money and grain, without being cheated by anyone.” (p. 168). The diction of “some” and “without being cheated” in conjunction indicates the author’s belief that women who successfully distribute financial power were few and far between. Even in acknowledging the necessity by law for mothers’ signature to allow sons to mortgage family properties, the author denies this ability for women to control the distribution of financial power – for “there are sons who falsify papers and forge signatures”, thereby bypassing their mother’s authority (p. 167). But despite demonstrating a strong lack of confidence in women’s capabilities with regards to financial management, the author was sympathetic to women who tried and failed to do so. The author lamented that husbands and sons who wronged their wives and mothers with financial misconduct were “grave misfortunes” for women – but provided no solution on women’s part for such dire circumstances – “what can they do?” (p. 167). This suggests that the section under which these details were recorded, titled “Women Should Not Take Part in Affairs Outside the Home”, was intended as rational advice for women based on the author’s honest belief of their incapabilities rather than as a restrictive prohibition (p. 166). These accounts were therefore written to serve the author’s aim of admonishing disappointing husbands and prodigal sons for forcing their wives or mothers to take charge of financial distribution. Similar to the previous level of procuring income, a woman was considered unfortunate if she must resort to taking charge of financial distribution for her family. In this case, women only distributed finances when they were saddled with economically insensible husbands or sons. 

According to the texts, the Medieval Chinese perception of women’s relationship to financial power was dependent on their marital and family situation. Married women were expected to be passive recipients of financial power, while widows, divorced women or wives of men who could not financially support the family alone could become active procurers of income through work. Women were only expected to take charge of distributing finances – regardless of whether they were the party who earned the money or not – when their husbands or sons failed to sensibly manage household economics. Ultimately, both authors, Hong Mai and Yuan Cai, are men who could not account for the perception of women in the Song Dynasty from a woman’s own perspective. Therefore, their writings cannot guarantee modern day readers a comprehensive nor balanced representation of the Medieval Chinese population’s perception of women during the Song Dynasty – although they still provide a useful basis for a perspective from the demographic which had the power to have their texts recorded and preserved till this day.