Changing partners
Although it is true that the Han court handed out official titles to reward widows who refrained from remarriage, A History of Chinese Women argues, "The larger society did not attach any great importance to this idea. No one ever tried to stop a widow from remarrying, and there was no lack of suitors."
The Han-dynasty poem "Picking Hemlock Parsley on the Mountain" tells the story of a divorced woman who happens across her ex-husband on her way back home from the mountains. The woman nonchalantly asks, "How's it going? Is that new wife of yours working out okay?"
Perhaps all men come down with a grass-is-greener complex after marriage. The ex-husband complains, "Don't ask! She doesn't even spin thread as well as you, and that's just for starters!" The man has come to realize what he has lost, but it is too late, for his former wife has long since washed her hands of him so completely that she is able to treat him like an old friend. Perhaps it hasn't been until today, in a society where one marriage in four ends in divorce, that Chinese women have once again learned to take such a free-spirited attitude.
The women of the Han dynasty were capable of much more ferocious displays of willfulness than that, though. The Hou Han Shu includes a chapter that tells of a girl who kills a person to avenge her father's death. The girl is sentenced to die, but a 15-year-old boy from her hometown appeals the sentence, describing the killing as the ultimate act of family loyalty. In the end the girl's death sentence is rescinded. Lie Nu Zhuan includes a story entitled Ti Ying Saves Her Father, in which the protagonist braves a long journey to the capital all by herself, where she successfully petitions the emperor to save her father's life. This was the only instance during all the centuries of Han rule that a commoner managed to deliver a petition directly to the emperor and have it granted.
Notes Fu Hsi-jen, a professor of Chinese at Tamkang University, "It wasn't just men during the Han dynasty who could avenge injustice; this course of action was also open to women. Although women could only do so on behalf of a murdered father, it still shows just how unrestrained and tough they could be."
Even Zhao Feiyan and Wang Zhaojun were a far cry from the dainty, fainting sort of woman who came to be so adored during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Feiyan came out on the losing end of intrigue among the women of the court, to be sure, but she was a vivacious dancer full of energy and life. As for Zhaojun, who can doubt the physical and emotional resilience of a woman who, having known the refined delights of the Chinese court, could not only survive but even flourish after being married off to Huns in the barren Asiatic steppes?
A woman for all seasons
The stories of Feiyan and Zhaojun have been played up so much over the centuries that we tend to forget that their lives were not actually representative of the way most women lived during the Han dynasty. Ko Ching-ming regards Luo Fu, the female protagonist in the ballad Mo Shang Sang, as a better illustration of the ideals to which women of the Han period aspired.
Luo Fu was a talented and robust woman who enjoyed working outdoors. Not only was she beautiful, she also knew how to accent her natural beauty with fashionable hairstyles and tasteful jewelry. When an official passing through from the south took a fancy to her and invited her for a ride in his carriage, she refused laughingly with the immortal words: "Such a fool you are! You have a wife, and I a husband." This quick-witted woman served as a role model for many.
In Mo Shang Sang we see a confident and strong woman who is faithful to her principles. It is always fascinating to look back at the past, but in the end we must live our lives in the present and reflect upon where we stand in the here and now. Is there some still higher ideal to which we can aspire as we enter upon a new century?