Chinese Women Essay

Urged by women and the “code of chivalry,” which was like the “cult of true womanhood,” men lost sexual access to their wives. Because of this, prostitution flourished. Though men were urged to control themselves, it was understood that desire was “in a man’s nature,” and therefore very hard for him to control.

A young woman would marry a man who was usually significantly older than she was. After marriage, women were stuck in a home where the male was the head of the household and made all of the decisions.11 Marital choice did not exist; at least not for women. Woman were forced to marry men that they barely knew, thus even the most intimate details of their lives were decided not by them, but by others. Love was usually not a factor in the marriage equation. Wife-beating was also allowed and men sometimes imprisoned, starved, and humiliated their wives.12

In Ancient China the father of the woman decided who that his daughter would marry. There was no agreement between the two fathers. The father would talk with an astrologer who had a birth chart on every child. By looking at the time and date of their births he would then decide whether or not they would be compatible for one another. The father when then make the decision whether they would marry, the daughter’s thoughts and opinion’s did not count.(9) The woman was required to be completely devoted to her husband. After the marriage a Chinese women was expected to bow to her new in-laws and offer them tea. This showed them that she now belonged to her husband’s family. It was required of her to obey her new

In both civilizations, marital relationships were not ones of love. In Han China, the Confucian use of Yin and Yang created a prevented the couple from loving each other. In Ban Zhao’s Lessons for Women, she states that because the concept of Yin and Yang are starkly different, man and woman have different qualities. The Yang is strong, but Yin is weak and yielding. A man was honored for his strength, yet a woman was glorified for her beauty (Zhao). Yin and Yang created a barrier for love. Han women had no control over who they married; it was the groom’s parents who chose the bride. Because the couple often did not know one another until the wedding, it was impossible to get to know the other’s personality, hence, they did not marry for love. Similarly, in the Roman Empire, marriages were arranged by family members, and the bride had no say in whom she married. According to historian Jo-Ann Shelton, because “marriages were arranged unions rather than love matches, husbands and wives did not have romantic expectations of their life together” (Shelton 44). The marriage of Agrippina, a descendant of Augustus, and Claudius, a Roman emperor, was one of sole convenience, where both parties had their own agendas. According to historian Anthony Barrett, “Claudius would need a wife, not for sex or companionship...but because he needed an ally to

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 follow her husband, and as a widow she was to follow her sons. Moreover, in the Confucian perception of the distinction between inner and outer, women were consigned to the inner domestic realm and excluded from the outer realm of examinations, politics and public life. For

This document also reveals that the act of adultery was taken very seriously by the authorities to maintain social order among the civilization. King Hammurabi set some serious punishments, both to women and men, to ensure the well-being of people. As a matter of fact, if men and women don’t cheat on their partners due to severe punishments, there will be less fight among the people of the land, which means more prosperity. Also, we can understand that women’s sexuality was often sacrificed to ensure legitimacy towards their husband.

They did that to vanish the love which is between a mother and a child. Mothers or women were used as animals only for breeding. Regardless of their dignity and their marital status, slaves, whether male or female, were put together with another slave of opposite sex for breeding. It was a source of increasing their property, the number of their slaves, without any cost, the cost of buying a new slave as the baby born was also raised as a slave. Women, specially pretty women, were used mostly to kill out the fire of their master’s lust. They were raped as they might have not wanted to surrender to an animal. But what if they would have not surrendered, they would have been whipped severely until they had lost their strength to fight against cruelty and savageness.

After marriage, women were to take the husband's ancestors as hers. Thus, a marriage had a purpose of continuing the ancestral line and raising the status of the family.

Medieval China, as seen in the Stories from a Ming Collection, was characterized by distinct separations between men and women’s abilities, typical old fashioned family structure, and a desire to advance their social status. Throughout all the stories in this book, it dives deep into different aspects of how men and women are treated, how families were structured and how that affects their lives, as well as the values these people held. A very common trend in the stories was how different men and women were treated and the limitations they may or may not had.

The men in plantation society, however, were socially allowed to follow a code of self-indulgence, especially when it came to their lust. While the plantation mistresses faithfully raised their husbands’ children, they would also have to put up with their husbands taking pleasure in raping and impregnating the slave women. Many slave-holding families attended church and the mistresses often subtly hoped the sermons would council their husbands into being faithful. The sermons, however, often supported the double standard so deeply entrenched in the Old South. Slave women were seen as property and if the planter wanted to impregnate her that was his perfectly moral prerogative. Plantation mistresses lived with that double

Marriage was usually arranged between families and seen as a way to conjoin two families of the same class, mainly for financial benefits. Because of this, there was often little connection between a husband and wife on a deeper, romantic level. This

The family structure has traditionally been the basic unit of Chinese society, where women have long been given the task of the continuation of the society 's core values, in their roles as wives and mothers. While the expected values have evolved with time, from the imperial period to the Communist revolution to the modern day, this responsibility for women has

The monogamy symbolizes the women has changes by serval ways, especially the regime have been changed for women. It also reflect the progress of modern civilization. For mate selection, women would like choose a men which have more intellect and moral character, and pay more attention to love. Also, women have the same position as men, and have opportunity to touch the society. They can live by themselves, because they have jobs, even women can support their families (Ke).

Oppressive gender roles in China all pertain to family and household roles. In China, the family is the building block of all social hierarchy; as stated by Edna Wang in her, the family is “the one fundamental social institution in China”. Due to popular religious

China is world’s most populous and fastest emerging economy that is seen as a continent in it instead of being part of Asia. In recent years, developed nations have been surprised by the acceleration of development in country that they give examples of success stories based on China’s market. Apart from China’s sophisticated with complex economic and political system, China also demonstrate interesting trends in several different prospects of society that are often neglected by intellectuals. There main focus is always on economic and political reform, But in this essay main focus is on the china’s population and the cultural rituals of family, gender and marriage. To add more, further elaboration will be addressed on the changing trends