The Perfect Wife (not really)

 Daisy Flenniken - Final Presentation

Philosophy Queens

-= Ban Zhao =-

    For my final presentation and blog post, I chose to talk about Chinese philosopher Ban Zhao. I'm sure you remember from our discussion in class that she wrote a book on how a high-class women should act, which in our time, has some pretty hot takes, but in hers, were crucial for survival. If you don't remember, don't fret. I will be sharing them again in this post. But if you do remember, that's great! You can brush up on what we discussed in this post. Or you can just completely ignore it because you remember everything and don't want to go through it again. Either way, I won't be offended. :)

Okay, here we go!

    Ban Zhao was born in the Eastern Han Dynasty in 45 A.D. and lived to 120 A.D., during her life she was known for many things: being "the wife of Shishu," for completing the Book of Han, and for writing her famous Lessons for Women. Originally, her well-known historian father started the Book of Han, which kept the history of 300 years of the Western Han Dynasty spanning from Emperor Gaozu to Emperor Ping. When he died before it was complete, it was passed on to her historian brother, Ban Gu who continued it until he died before its completion as well. Finally, under the order of the emperor, it was passed to her to finish, which she did. THE BOOK OF HAN WAS FINALLY COMPLETE!! Whoo hoo!

On to her next and biggest accomplishment.

    Ban Zhao is most know for authoring Lessons for Women (as seen above), which is essentially a guidebook for upper class women on etiquette and how to be a good wife. In her day, this was very well received and seen as a life saver for a lot of women. In her book, she writes on the topics of humility, husband and wife dynamics, respect and caution, womanly qualities, wholehearted devotion, implicit obedience, and harmony with in-laws. Now, some of those topics sound great, but others seem a little controversial. In her day, women were seen as inferior and subservient, not quite as much as a literal servant, but as inferior to men. So, in her context, this makes sense. I will get into how this relates to our day in a bit, but first, let's talk about the two most popular topics she wrote about in her book.

-Her chapter on husband and wife dynamics. 

    In this chapter, she describes the perfect husband and wife dynamic that women should stive for (to the best of their abilities). She uses the example of yin and yang. Yin is the man, representing the quality of rigidity, which is honoured by strength. Yang is the woman, representing the quality of yielding, which is appreciated due to gentleness. Essentially, the Yang controls the Yin, and the Yin serves the Yang, which legitimizes women being controlled by men and men being served by women. Now, this isn't the main point she's trying to make here, she focuses more on the principles of each and how they work in harmony. She's giving an example of how the two work together to keep the peace as best as possible. She states in this chapter that respect and acquiescence are the most important principles for the wife's conduct. She uses terms like weakness, softness, inferiority, and malleability to describe how to abide by these principles. In that day, quarrels, disagreements, or accusations in the family were seen to be because of the wife not staying in her place: quiet and submissive. She says that the heart of disrespect comes from spouses being to close to each other (this I don't really understand, don't you work better together the closer you are?) and arguments in families come from blunt and crookedness in words. She advises that flattering and coaxing words should be avoided, and that it is best for wives to practice self-cultivation and suppress contempt. She says these things out of worry for the wife and to keep the family cohesiveness. This is all to keep the environment in the home calm and neutral, and it is from her own observations that she comes to this conclusion, not from any ethical deductions.

-Her chapter on getting along with in-laws.

    In this last chapter of her book, she deals with how to get along with the in-laws. This sounds like a silly topic, but in reality, this is a big part of marriage. The wife is joining an entirely new family where she has no ranking authority, which is bound to bring troubles. She goes on to say that "nobody can be faultless," giving freedom for the wife to be right, but advises not to exercise this if she is in a situation with someone who overpowers her. For example, what the mother-in-law says can be incorrect, and that mistakes of the daughter-in-law can be hidden well enough if she is able to live in peace with the husband's family. This presents a challenge for the wife, she has to position herself within the complex relationships of the in-laws, while still being respectful to the husband's family. She doesn't want to be stepping on anyone's toes! 

    With that being said, her main purpose of writing this "guidebook" is to prepare soon-to-be wives on how to best serve the husband's house through respect and acquiescence, and to prioritize accommodation over confrontation. The main point is to keep the peace by staying humble and not overstepping your boundaries as a woman.

    This is in direct opposition to our modern feminism. Today's feminism says that women don't have to cozy up to what a man wants, that we are just as strong and capable as men are, and we deserve the same rights. We are lucky to be in a country where women do have the same rights as men and that this perspective reigns. Even in this day and age, women in some countries still don't have the same rights, and some don't allow their women to be educated, own land, or even drive cars. I do believe that in America, some women take feminism too far by saying that women are better than men and we don't need them at all, in which I disagree. We still need men in society, but what we don't need is men feeling entitled and thinking they can tell us what to do. 

And to end us off, I propose a new question:

 If you were to write a "guide book" on how to be the best spouse (husband or wife, your choice), what would you say? and why?