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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page paper examining the theme of domestic abuse in 17th century China in this book by Jonathan D. Spence. The paper argues that because Chinese society placed so much power in the hands of one gender at the expense of another, tragedies like the brutal death of Mrs. Wang were inevitable. Bibliography lists 1 source.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Womnwang.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
juggling work and home responsibilities. However, their lot would seem like heaven to Chinese women of the seventeenth century. The tragic life conditions of one particular seventeenth-century woman were chronicled
in Jonathan Spences book The Death of Woman Wang. Spences book, part history and part fiction, tells of a woman known to us only by the name of the male
who "owned" her -- for Chinese women had no identity of their own at that time. While sons were raised to carry on the family name and traditions, daughters were
raised only to marry into another family. As children they were property of their fathers; as brides they became property of their husbands. And yet Spences book describes a
situation which goes far beyond the normal behavior of a patriarchal male toward his subservient wife. The woman Wang is actually murdered for an attempt to get out from under
her husbands domination -- and while her situation was by no means typical of Chinese marital experience, the repressive conditions which made it possible were the cultural portion of every
Chinese woman who lived during that era. How was it possible for a man to have so little respect for his wife that he would beat and kill her
-- and did his society support his right to do so? In order to answer this question, we need to look at the background of Chinese patriarchy. Chinese society followed
the dictums of Confucius, who taught that a happy society could be said to take a sort of pyramid shape. All men were subservient to the king, who formed the
point at the top of the pyramid; beneath the king and his male subjects, all women were subservient to their men. All children were likewise respectful of their parents (but
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