Women in the Song Dynasty

"The boy leads the girl, the girl follows the boy; the duty of husbands to be resolute and wives to be docile begins with this" (371), states scholar Sima Guang highlighting the divide between men and women. In the past, men's masculinity was judged on their athletic ability. In this chapter however, we see that in the Song Dynasty, there was more of an emphasis on "calligraphy, scholarship, painting and poetry" (371). That was what was expected from men, but when we take a look at the roles of women, not much has changed. Women were seen as distractions to men's studies, and subordinate to their husband's. One of the hardest things to read about in this chapter was the practice of foot binding. This example of tightening patriarchy, spread heavily among the elite, but eventually extended to the larger part of Chinese society. Foot binding involves the "tight wrapping of a young girl's feet, usually breaking the bones of the feet and causing intense pain" (371). The practice emphasized the frailty of women and served to keep them in their "inner quarters" where Confucian tradition insisted they belonged.