Role of Women in China Past and Present
China is, and always has been, a patrilineal and patriarchal society. It is well known that Chinese society emphasis the importance of the family and the hierarchy within the family. Men's superiority and women's inferiority are deeply rooted in the 2,000-year-old Chinese culture and are reflected in many aspects of social life. Obtaining positions of housewife, child bearer, cook, and other domestic duties is what women of China are limited to, but yet common in so many other cultures. The women of China especially face this "ideology" or culture in, what seems the crudest sense. Only as of lately, have women in China been able to hold positions higher then that of the domestic duties and slowly gaining equality, if not respect among the opposite sex. Chinese women, or all women for this matter, contribute to the family, culture and society more than most even realize. I will discuss what issues women of China deal with, what women actually contribute to their society a!nd too see what strides women of Chine have made down the years. Women in China have not been treated with the most respect. Relationships sometimes even varied with in social classes. In the upper class, the concept about marriage is opposite than tradi
3.) Liu, Bohong. "Chinese Women's Employment" Chinese Education and Society March/April 2000, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p. 73 In feudal China, men had the ability to divorce their wives for reasons ranging from infidelity, laziness, loss of manners, or just being useless. Yet the wife never had the right to divorce the husband. The lack of freedom in nearly all aspects of their lives rendered them at the whim of their husbands. If the husband divorced the wife, she is put to shame and is looked down upon in there society. If the wife committed adultery she was condemned. Any ill actions towards the husband was forbidden and scorned. Yet, in feudal China, the most common practice was the betrothal marriage. If a man fell in love with a girl, or his parents wanted him to marry her, they would send a matchmaker to the girl's home. Because the middle and lower class was the majority, many marriages were not necessarily economic based. Yet this was how the culture was, it was accepted among the masses. Women accepted this kind of treatment because it was part of the culture, from the day of th! eir birth, they dealt with the notion that they were the lesser in society and that this was how it is done. law made women officially equal to men in their freedom to make their own choices about marriage and divorce. But the law was never really enforced in the countryside. 5.) Hongxia, Hu. "Marriage in Feudal China" February 2001
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2590
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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