Gentlemen's Prescriptions for Women's Lives: A Thousand Years of Biographies of Chinese Women

A Thousand Years of Biographies of Chinese Women

Sherry J. Mou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317469933
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

As far back as the first century BCE, Chinese dynastic historians - all men - began recording the achievements of Chinese women and creating a structure of understanding that would be used to limit and control them. To men, these women became role models for their daughters and wives; to the few literate women readers, they became paradigms for their own behavior. Thus, although these biographies are descriptive by nature, they actually became prescriptive. Gentlemen's Prescriptions for Women's Lives is an enlightening source for studying Chinese women of the Imperial era as well as for understanding Chinese womanhood in general. By contextualizing these biographies, the author shows us these women not just as the complaisant, calm-eyed, delicate figures that adorn Confucian texts, but also as the products of the Confucian tradition's appropriation of women.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Explanatory Notes
• Chronology of Early Chinese Dynasties
• Illustrations for Biographies follow page 112
• 1. From The Biographies of Women to the Biographies of Chaste Women
• 2. Appropriating Women: Liu Xiang’s Lienü zhuan
• 3. Subjecting Women to Histories: Hou Han shu and Jin shu
• 4. Reinventing Women: Wei shu, sui shu, and Bei shi
• 5. Writing Virtues with Their Bodies: Xin Tang shu and Jin Tang shu
• 6. Conclusion: A Biography Tradition That Is Not
• Appendixes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index