Women in ancient and imperial China

Traditional Chinese society has been male-centered. Sons were preferred to daughters, and women were expected to be subordinate to fathers, husbands, and sons. Far fewer women were educated than men, and many of their readings consist of book such as Nü Xun (女訓, Advice for Women) and Lienü zhuan (烈女傳, Biographies of Notable Women), which instruct them to be subjects of men. Bound feet, which were customary even for peasant women, symbolized the painful constraints of the female role.

References

Further reading

• Lee, Lily Xiao Hong; Stefanowska, A. D., eds. (2007). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: Antiquity Through Sui, 1600 B.C.E.-618 C.E. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0765641828. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Lee, Lily Xiao Hong; Stefanowska, A. D.; Ho, Clara Wing-chung, eds. (1998). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: The Qing Period, 1644-1911. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0765618273. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Peterson, Barbara Bennett (2000). Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early Twentieth Century. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0765605047. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• McMahon, Keith (2013). Women Shall Not Rule: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liao. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442222908. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• Bossler, Beverly (2013). Courtesans, concubines, and the cult of female fidelity : gender and social change in China, 1000-1400. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 9780674066694.
• Kinney, Anne Behnke (2014). Exemplary Women of Early China. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231163095. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• Wang, Robin R. (2003). Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period Through the Song Dynasty. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ISBN 9780872206519. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1993). The inner quarters marriage and the lives of Chinese women in the Sung period. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520913486. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• Harriet T. Zurndorfer (1999). Chinese women in the imperial past : new perspectives. Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill Publishers. ISBN 9789004110656. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• Hinsch, Bret (2011). Women in early imperial China (2nd ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742568242. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
• Idema, Wilt; Grant, Beata (2004). The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China ([Nachdr.]. ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 9780674013933.
• Holdsworth, May (2000). Women of the Tang dynasty. Odyssey Publications. ISBN 9789622176447.
• Benn, Charles D. (2002). China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty (Pbk. [ed.]. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195176650. Retrieved 7 July 2015.

See also

• Four Beauties
• History of China
• Homosexuality in China
• Hua Mulan
• Li Qingzhao
• Mui Tsai
• Nüshu script
• Timeline of women in ancient warfare
• Women in China
• Wu Zetian