论文Ancient Chinese Women should have been Equal to Men.doc

Ancient Chinese Women should have been Equal to Men Almost all living things on the earth consist of males and females, which plays an important role and either cannot be absent in life. Therefore, there is no doubt that women should be equal to men. However, this was just a dream for women in ancient China, who had few free rights and were compliments to the men. Ancient China was a world of men, and men, having absolute authority, were the leaders in their families and their country. Staying in the lower social status, women were expected to always obey men’s orders without hesitation at any occasion if they wanted to get the favor of men and lived a better live. However, women should have been equal to men because of their intelligence, competence, and indispensable existence in life, in country, and in history. It was quite unreasonable that ancient Chinese women were not allowed to receive an education just because of the funny reason “Innocence is the virtue for women”. They were only allowed to read some books such as Nü Xun, Lienü Zhuan and Nei Xun(Zhang 122), which taught women how to good wives and good mothers. However, ancient Chinese women could be as talented as men in the world of letters. Strict and strong as the dogmas were, some courageous women still ignored criticism from society and kept gaining an education and reading some “banned books” such as The Peony Pavilion and The Romance of West Chamber (.). Li Qingzhao, born in the Song Dynasty, was one of those intelligent as well as courageous women. She wrote numerous emotionally pleasant short lyrics, which confirmed her own theory about the peculiarity of Ci, and won respect from later generations. Ye Xiaowan, born in the Ming Dynasty, wrote the famous zaju A Dream of Mandarin Ducks and became the first female opera writer in Chinese history (.). There were still some other famous women who tried their best to transfer their intelligence into writings, drawings and many other ways. They had cr