China Age Of Glory Summary

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Recommended: Women's roles in ancient china

Kathryn Vandrey
10/26/17
China Age of Glory
列女傳: Biographies of Women The 列女傳was written during the Han dynasty by Liu Xiang, who was a Han dynasty Historian and Librarian (Theobald, Persons in Chinese History); the 列女傳it is the earliest and best known Chinese book “solely devoted to the moral education of women,” (Kinney, Traditions of Exemplary women). This book was created to promote Confucian ideals of how a proper and virtuous woman should behave both in public and private. Each of the stories focuses on a woman of virtue, who through actions and words was an exemplary example of Confucian ideals. The biographies have different categories that talk of different types of women such as “Matronly Models, The Chaste and Obedient, and The Principles and Righteous,” just to name a few (Kinney, Traditions of Exemplary Women). The selection I’ve done a reading on is from the biographies of the worthy and enlightened (賢明傳) which is chapter 2 of the 列女傳. …show more content…

There, in almost all the stories in this chapter, is a strong focus on what the woman has done for a male ruler, husband, or relative. Following traditional Confuciean ideas “women’s roles were primarily kinship roles: daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, and mother-in-law,” (Ebrey, Women in Traditional China) you can see this reflected in the fact that each of the stories starts out by saying who the woman was related or married

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