It Is Important To Realize That The Treatment Of Women In China Had It

It is important to realize that the treatment of women in China had its roots in the ancient Confucius philosophy. He introduced the Five Human Relationships to the world in his Analectics. By making these relationships, he brought order to society. These relationships ranged from that of a father to a son, ruler to subject, husband to wife, older brother to younger brother, and friend to a friend. In all of these, except the last one, the first person was the superior to the second, and was supposed to set a good example and take care of the inferior. The second person, the inferior, owed respect and obedience to their superior. Friends were social equals who owed each other respect and courtesy. Confucian philosophy taught that society would be in harmony if everyone performed their proper duties. This was the type of mentality that led to the treatment endured by women in the seventeenth century China, as described in The Death of Woman Wang by Jonathan Spence. Because China was not modernized, by European standards, women in the seventeenth century were just as much confined to their husbands, as those of ancient China. The old customs stayed the same, and women were offered into a marriage, much like the Woman Wang, as property. Marriage represented very little emotional commitment for the husband, yet the woman had to be faithful. The wife had no rights that would allow her to leave her husband, she could not ask for a divorce. Yet the husband could legitimately divorce his wife if she did not give birth to male children. Furthermore, the husband was allowed to have extramarital sexual affairs, while such an act by the women would have been punishable by death, and would have brought great dishonor to the whole family. From this book we can clearly identify the main idea which the whole justice system in China stands behind. Chinese strongly believe that if the society does not punish the criminals is simply headed towards a complete deterioration. The society has got to have rules and regulations, which would serve as the standard for everyone living in this society, but according to Huang Liu-hund just having rules and regulations is not enough in building a civilized society, in fact this is just "one" of its steps. Chinese rulers in 17th century realized how important it was to have legal codes. The codes they created covered pretty much all the aspects of life at that time, including such issues as criminal codes for assault or murder, civil laws or even laws on such issues as rights of widows and inheritance after their husband's death. The situation in China in 17th century was absolutely horrendous, the country was filled with bandits, people died of hunger, there were diseases spreading ar ound, people constantly rebelled. The life at that time was not worth much and for the most part people did not see much joy in their existence. Jonathan Spence does a very good job describing all these problems and their affect on people of one particular place in China called T'an-ch'eng. And if not for this very advanced justice system, who knows what it could have led to. Also, most women experience a difficult transition to widowhood, regardless of culture or the time period in which they live. Not only do they miss the companionship of their spouse, but they miss the routine of married life, and society seems structured around the idea of couples rather than singles, which makes the suddenly-single a sort of social outcast. In the society described by Spence, a woman without a man literally had no social identity whatsoever. We can see this in one of the narratives called Widow it describes the story of a widow named P'eng. The legal code of T'an-ch'eng stated that if the husband dies, and there is no son in the family, all inheritance goes to the widow. The trick of this whole deal is if the widow decides to get remarried or dies the whole property of her husband goes to his family clan. Peng did have a son named Lien and her late husband's family wanted her to remarry badly, but she kept on refusing,