Women and Families in Classical Society
The Chinese scholar Ban Zhao. By AKappa, public domain.
During the classical period, between 600 BCE and 600 CE, many significant new belief systems developed. These belief systems gave rise to new laws, practices, and customs that altered social structures such as family and marriage. The lives of women and children were greatly affected by these changes.
During this period, women had less power than men. However, there was still a great deal of variation among women. Depending on where they lived and what social class they belonged to, different women had different degrees of freedom and independence in their public and private lives.
Belief systems
Belief systems and religions might seem to exist simply in the world of ideas, but they have considerable effects on people’s daily lives. Over time, concepts create rules and expectations for how people relate to one another. This is particularly true in the way women live in relation to men and to society in general.
For example, women in China had very different social roles under two different belief systems: Daoism and Confucianism. The written rules of Daoism gave women a greater ability to play an active role in religion and to make decisions about their own lives. The written rules of Confucianism limited women’s power more severely. However, it is unclear whether women actually followed these rules in all cases. As with any religious or moral system, there was a difference between rules on paper and how people actually lived their lives.
| Belief system | Views on women | Philosophies |
|---|---|---|
| Confucianism in Han China | Filial piety required that people respect their elders and ancestors, especially male ones. The ideal role for women was to take care of a large household. Women typically didn’t have formal roles in Confucian life outside the home. |
Both Confucianism and Daoism have the concept of yin and yang, or duality. Women are seen as part of the yin: yielding, submissive, soft, etc. Men are seen as part of the yang: aggressive, powerful, etc. |
| Daoism in Han China | Women were allowed to be priests and teachers in the Daoist tradition. In the classical Daoist text, the Daodejing, feminine characteristics such as fertility, softness, and submission are seen as positive and respected features. |
In Daoism, the female contribution as the yin is more respected than it is in Confucianism; it is seen as a part of nature. Daoism suggests that a softer, more yielding attitude may eventually lead to more favorable results. |
Table 1: Table comparing views on women and philosophies in Confucianism and Daoism in Han China
Family and marriage
In many societies, women’s primary roles revolved around motherhood and managing a household. While women in many places and times had this in common, there were significant differences in how women performed these roles. Many of these differences depended on the nature of kinship relations within a particular society. Kinship is a close bond or relationship between two or more people. It is based on familial relationships, such as common descent, blood relation, and marriage.
We can compare different kinship relations within one society. In Han China, a woman’s power in a particular household depended on how she related to the men in the family. This can be seen in the Confucian principle of the three obediences. According to this principle, a woman’s first obedience is to her father before she is married, to her husband while she is married, and to her son, after her husband dies. During the course of their lives, women were dependent on their male kin, but they had different levels of power depending on their age and influence over male family members. Mothers of powerful older sons, for example, exercised far greater control over household affairs than a younger son’s new bride.
In this way, Chinese thinkers of the Han dynasty understood the family as the core unit. Men were formally the heads of the family unit and exercised legal power over the women and children in the household. Imperial Rome was similar in that the paterfamilias—Latin for “the father of the family”— was legally responsible for the family unit.
In both societies, women exercised some legal power. For example, Roman women could own property and inherit after the deaths of their fathers. In Han China, the wills of women show that some older women held property, inherited assets, and managed businesses. Similarly, in Imperial Rome, despite strict laws, both elite and ordinary women regularly bought and sold property with very few limits on their freedom. This suggests that formal roles for women were not always followed and that women often had informal power.
While the two societies share these similarities, they were different in other significant ways. For example, while women in Han China were mostly limited to separate women’s spaces, Roman homes were not formally segregated. Roman women were confined to the back rows of theaters and arenas, but they had more of a role in public life than their Han Chinese counterparts. Han women were mostly limited to the private, domestic sphere — that is, to the household. While Roman women often dined with men and visited public baths, women in Han China would not have been permitted to do either of these things.
| Formal legal status | Economic power | Role in public life | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Han China | Formally, women’s lives were controlled by male kin. | Some women had wills and managed businesses. | Women were mostly limited to private, segregated spaces. |
| Imperial Rome | Paterfamilias was in charge of the women and children. | Women could inherit and own property after a father’s death. | Women could go out to dinner and visit public baths; however, women often had to be accompanied by a male relative or guardian to do so. |
Table 2: Table comparing the formal legal status, economic power, and roles in public life of women in Han China vs. Imperial Rome
Class and social hierarchy
Because most accounts of women’s lives were written by wealthy people, scholars don’t always know what the lives of poor families were like. However, we can deduce that there were differences between elite and common women. In Han China, the ability to keep a large household with a lot of family members was highly valued. But this Confucian ideal was not possible for poorer families who could only feed a limited number of people. Men with less money often sold their daughters as servants and kept their more valuable male children at home.
In Imperial Rome, women of different socioeconomic classes were distinguished by clothing style. Wealthy women wore a long dress or stola, and a loose coat called a palla. They also wore ties in their hair. Prostitutes wore togas. If a woman of a higher socioeconomic class was found guilty of adultery, one of the punishments was to wear a toga. The distinction Imperial Roman society made between these two groups was more than just a moral one. Prostitutes and women of lower socioeconomic levels were also given fewer rights than women of a higher social rank.
Statue of Livia Drusilla, the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus, wearing a stola and palla. By Luis García, public domain.
Sources
Beard, Mary. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015.
“Daughter/Wife/Mother or Sage/Immortal/Bodhisattva? Women in the Teaching of Chinese Religions.” AsiaNetwork Exchange, vol. XIV, no. 2 (Winter 2006). Retrieved from https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Writings/Women.pdf
Hinsch, Bret. “Women, Kinship, and Property as Seen in a Han Dynasty Will.” T’oung Pao Second Series, Vol. 84, Fasc. 1/3 (1998).
Tignor, Robert et. al. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.
Eman M. Elshaikh and Rosie Friedland
The authors of this article are Eman M. Elshaikh and Rosie Friedland. Eman is a writer, researcher, and teacher who has taught K-12 and undergraduates in the United States and in the Middle East and written for many different audiences. She teaches writing at the University of Chicago, where she also completed her master’s in social sciences, focusing on history and anthropology. She was previously a World History Fellow at Khan Academy, where she worked closely with the College Board to develop curriculum for AP World History. Rosie is a content contributor at Khan Academy. She has created materials for a variety of Khan Academy’s test prep offerings, including free SAT prep in partnership with College Board. She has also worked on course materials for Grammar, World History, U.S. History, and early-grade English Language Arts.
Image credits
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 except for the following:
Cover: Silk weaving, drawing, China. Western Han Dynasty, 206 BCE-24 CE. © Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images.
The Chinese scholar Ban Zhao. By AKappa, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banzhao.jpg#/media/File:Banzhao.jpg
Statue of Livia Drusilla, the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus, wearing a stola and palla. By Luis García, public domain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Livia_Drusila_-_Paestum_(M.A.N._Madrid)_01.jpg
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