What were the Roles and Customs of Women in Imperial China?

In Imperial China (pre 1949) women were seen to be less than men, an object that served as slaves and prostitutes for men because the norm attitude towards women was that they were “deemed less useful or valuable than males” (Inong, 2008). This portrays that the common governmental structure that women were “subservient” (Vess, 1998) and unimportant in a “male dominated”  (Nosotro, 2000) country. 

Women in China

In this era the women’s place was in the home, to keep it clean and at an acceptable standard.  (Vess, 1998) Their main tasks in life were not complicated –marry a wealthy man, keep him happy and produce as many children as possible. The more children the better, particularly if the child was a boy,  (Vess, 1998) as previously stated, this ancient society believed that men held a superior power over women and  “…the roles of women were frequently controlled by men” (Miller, 2008) illustrating the male dominate society. Males dominated most cultures in imperial societies, and China was not different, in these days men were more important and had more rights. Women on the other hand were merrily an object that that occupied men.

They were loyal to their husbands and if court cheating, they would be severely punished, however in contrast, it was encouraged that men mingled with other women, as this kept them amused which was what women were meant to do and in addition it created more children for the population. The married women often did not have any opinion in this intermingle it was expected of them to have “lived with it”, as this was the behavior that was dominate in men (Inong, 2008).  

Since the women’s place was in the home, she did not often walk to an extent for the reason that the pain would be unbearable and she had no purpose to go anywhere but the markets.  However some of the poorer returned to work in the fields which brought excruciating pain from manual labour, this resulted in the binding cloths to be loosened. By doing this, it created space for expansion which promoted growth and effectively creating the purpose of foot binding obsolete as the feet have  “… never reached standard size.”  (Rupp, Foot bound Stories, 2010)