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Women in Early Imperial China By Bret Hinsch was actually much better than I was expecting. It was a fairly slim volume, only around 170 pages of text which seemed a little sparse compared to works like Dorothy Ko's Particia Ebrey's and Susan Mann's books on the lives of later imperial women. It also seemed to be more scholarly and thoroughly researched than the first book by Hinsch I read which was Passions of the Cut Sleeve which traced the history of male homosexual relationships in China and was quite fascinating. This book was based on his PHD thesis for Harvard in 1994 so I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised however.
The first chapter gives a brief look at the historical context of the book. A brief overview of some of the main events of the period. Hinsch is also quick to stress that the writers of the time addressed only a very small number of elite's, and that most people were pragmatic by necessity for their view of gender and relations. He uses primary sources from the period, as well as recent archaeological discoveries to support his work. These discoveries include wills, and law documents and show a glimpse beyond the highest level of society which is shown in the classical texts.
Hinsch has a nice approach to dealing with gender in Early Imperial China. (Qin and Han dynasties 220BCE 220CE approx.). He accurately, states that "the status of women" is something that cannot be explored as such as women existed in all levels of society and the roles they played had much greater impact on their lives than simply their biological gender. He therefore looks at the different roles women played in society. The biggest and most important role was that in the family, however women would play multiple roles at one time, daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law etc. Different roles frequently contained different responsibilities and different structures of power.
He focuses on several other areas outside the family, wealth and work, law, government, learning, ritual and cosmology. It was interesting to read about how women handled themselves in business, and how some work, weaving, was considered to be a moral virtue. Hinsch showed that often women would have control over their sons' estates until they died. Law looked at the legalities around divorce, which both men and women were entitled to, as well as dowries, and court cases. The chapter on government was a little sparse. Hinsch looked at the importance of women's roles in the Imperial palace. The grading of concubines and their official duties. However I felt he dealt to briefly with the impact of family and clans during this time. The role of women in ritual was very interesting. It was seen as necessary for a man to marry as there were rituals that only a woman was capable of doing, and therefore she had a very necessary role in ritual life. It should however also be pointed out that these rituals were considered inferior to those of the men.
While not as detailed as later books on the same subject for different eras it was great to read a book about the lives of women this early, an area which has been largely ignored by scholarship until now. I found it to be very interesting and readable.
The first chapter gives a brief look at the historical context of the book. A brief overview of some of the main events of the period. Hinsch is also quick to stress that the writers of the time addressed only a very small number of elite's, and that most people were pragmatic by necessity for their view of gender and relations. He uses primary sources from the period, as well as recent archaeological discoveries to support his work. These discoveries include wills, and law documents and show a glimpse beyond the highest level of society which is shown in the classical texts.
Hinsch has a nice approach to dealing with gender in Early Imperial China. (Qin and Han dynasties 220BCE 220CE approx.). He accurately, states that "the status of women" is something that cannot be explored as such as women existed in all levels of society and the roles they played had much greater impact on their lives than simply their biological gender. He therefore looks at the different roles women played in society. The biggest and most important role was that in the family, however women would play multiple roles at one time, daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law etc. Different roles frequently contained different responsibilities and different structures of power.
He focuses on several other areas outside the family, wealth and work, law, government, learning, ritual and cosmology. It was interesting to read about how women handled themselves in business, and how some work, weaving, was considered to be a moral virtue. Hinsch showed that often women would have control over their sons' estates until they died. Law looked at the legalities around divorce, which both men and women were entitled to, as well as dowries, and court cases. The chapter on government was a little sparse. Hinsch looked at the importance of women's roles in the Imperial palace. The grading of concubines and their official duties. However I felt he dealt to briefly with the impact of family and clans during this time. The role of women in ritual was very interesting. It was seen as necessary for a man to marry as there were rituals that only a woman was capable of doing, and therefore she had a very necessary role in ritual life. It should however also be pointed out that these rituals were considered inferior to those of the men.
While not as detailed as later books on the same subject for different eras it was great to read a book about the lives of women this early, an area which has been largely ignored by scholarship until now. I found it to be very interesting and readable.