Traditions of Exemplary Women (Lienu zhuan): An
Introduction
by Anne Behnke
Kinney
Professor of Chinese
University of
Virginia
Compiled
toward the end of the Former Han dynasty (202 B.C.- A.D. 9), Liu
Xiang's (79-8 B.C.) Lienü
zhuan
or Traditions of Exemplary Women, hereafter abbreviated as LNZ, is
the earliest extant book in the Chinese tradition solely devoted to
the moral education of women. The book consists primarily of
biographical accounts of women in early China who were noted for
various virtues, though the final chapter concerns exemplars of
feminine wickedness. After its composition the LNZ became the
standard textbook for female education for the next two millennia,
inspiring generations of Chinese women to cultivate not only
traditional virtues such as filial piety and maternal kindness but
lauding practices such as suicide and self-mutilation as a means to
preserve chastity. Nevertheless, given the innovative nature of this
book in Han times as well as the astonishing continuity of its
influence, it deserves our scholarly attention.
The
seven categories of feminine behavior that Liu Xiang devised are (1)
matronly deportment, (2) sagacious clarity, (3) benevolent wisdom,
(4) chaste obedience, (5) pure righteousness, (6) rhetorical
competence, and (7) depraved favoritism. Most of Liu's book is
comprised of materials found in earlier texts,such as the Zuo
zhuan and
the Guoyu.
In
my view, the new stress on Confucian learning in female education
reflects, first of all, a utopian notion that was rapidly gaining
currency in the later half of the Former Han dynasty, namely, that
only when the entire population engages in self-cultivation will the
empire achieve an era of great peace and high civilization. The LNZ,
with its lessons that guide women from all levels of society,
represents an effort to shape the entire female population in the
Confucian mold. Moreover, given the ample opportunities for upward
social mobility available to women during this period of time (no
less than three slave women became empress at this time), the number
of uneducated women at court was a cause for concern in an age when
classical learning became the standard means of establishing a
person's social and political credentials.
Second,
from a purely practical perspective, the immense power that imperial
women had acquired during this period prompted Confucians to use
texts such as the LNZ to exert moral influence over women they could
not control by political means. Contemporary memorials written to
warn the emperor about the destructive influence of both uneducated
and unscrupulous court women reach their most fevered pitch when an
investigation of the untimely death of emperor Cheng (7 B.C.E.)
revealed that the emperor's favorite but barren concubine had
persuaded him to kill two infant sons born to other court women,
leaving him without heirs and the dynasty in crisis. According to one
source, it was for this emperor that Liu Xiang composed
the Traditions
of Exemplary Women in
the hope that the emperor would use the text to instruct his
womenfolk.
A
final condition that prompted the compilation of this text was the
new emphasis in the late Former Han on interpreting portents as
Heaven's commentary on imperial rule. Since Confucian intellectuals
viewed the emperor as the earthly guardian of the Heavenly or natural
order, the emperor's departure from virtue was thought to generate
cosmic imbalances in the two primordial powers, Yin and Yang. During
the mid- and late Former Han, the Confucian concern with feminine
virtue is once again demonstrated in records of portents, which were
often read as signals of cosmic imbalance in which Yin (associated
with feminine power) had overpowered Yang (the masculine power).
Court ministers who interpreted such portents most often urged the
emperor to correct the situation by making changes in the imperial
harem, most notably, to diminish the power exerted by the emperor's
mother and her kin. Because Confucians viewed filial piety as one of
the cardinal virtues, those critical of empress dowagers had to
employ indirect means, such as omenology, to attack such women.
Similarly, schemes to educate women were, in part, one of the few
options open to Confucians who, because they were unable to dislodge
imperial women from positions of power, sought alternative means to
exert control over their behavior.
A
new and fully annotated English language translation is available
through Columbia University Press:
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/exemplary-women-of-early-china/9780231163095
