The Song Era Women Analysis

When we think of the woman's role in Chinese society, we often look to the Neo-Confusion ideas of womanhood. The time when all women in China had the feet bound. When women were expected to be loyal, to there father or husband. There were times in Chinese societies when women had greater freedoms. If you examine stories from before the Song era, you can see some of these freedoms. Some of these powerful stories include; The woman warrior (Mulan) and The Xiang queens. Susan Mann believes that these are a few reoccurring stories that define women's roles in Chinese society. These stories were written before the time of the bound foot, and display a powerful image of women.
Foot binding began in The Song Era. It was the process of tightly wrapping the feet of young
The story of Yang Guifei was that of a scheming seductive woman. She was a concubine that Emperor Xuangzong took a strong liking too. This helped get her relatives into powerful positions. Rumor began to slander her faithfulness to Xuangzong, so he took her on a retreat, while he was pledging his love for her; Al Lushan led a revolt to found a new dynasty. Although Xaungzong stopped the revolt, he was not able to protect Yang Guifei from being killed. He was so upset by the death of yang Guifei that he could not continue to be Emperor. While this story shows the power of a woman, it portrays them in a negative way. A strong woman has the power to crumble a whole dynasty. This story was changed later to make the women look even more scandalous. The later versions included a second woman, Meifei. The two women got into drunken fits of rage or fights over the Emperors attention. Many historians believe that this story comes at the turning point of Chinese history for women, coming from a time of freedom from the Tang Dynasty to the time of male dominance of the Song Dynasty and