同济大学中国社会经济课件 The Transition of Chinese.pptVIP

At the age of 14, she was selected by the emperor to be sent into the palace as one of his concubines. Later when she waited on the emperor on his sick bed, she met with the crown prince, who fell in love with her because of her great beauty. As a rule, when the emperor died, she was sent to a nunnery to be a nun. As accordingly the crown prince became the emperor, he got her back into the palace and made her his concubine. She was an ambitious woman and wanted to be the empress. Through a series of struggles with the empress and another concubine, she succeeded in replacing the empress. Since the emperor was always sick, she helped him with the administration of the nation and so was the real ruler over the country. She gave birth to four sons and a daughter for the emperor, and when the emperor died and one of her sons was crowned to be the new emperor, she became the empress dowager, but still stayed in power. Then she wanted to be the sovereign empress and was crowned to be the sovereign empress, the first one, the last one, and the sole one, in the Chinese history. Her exciting story was made into movies in Chinese. The Transition of Chinese Marriage and Family System Empress WU Zetian (625-705) Background Since 1949 China has promised womens equality. Women hold up half the sky, Mao said. Changes in the Chinese family were imposed quickly and radically, says Harvard Universitys Martin Whyte. In most societies these changes would take generations. In Maos China they were compressed into a time period, really, of two or three years. The Transition of Chinese Marriage and Family System Marriage and Family System in Modern China Improvement of Female Social Status Chinas 1950 marriage laws, for example, made men and women, at least theoretically, equal. The law banned compulsory arranged marriages, concubinage, child betrothal and interference in the remarriage of widows. It reluctantly permitted divorce, but only