A Further Word on Daoism.
Nov. 11th, 2007 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sechan19Several weeks ago, I quoted from an article I was reading in this post. That idea has come up again, but in a new light that got me thinking about things.
In an article on the possible interpretations of the lives and roles of early dynastic Chinese women, Katheryn M. Linduff looks at a jade figurine found in the tomb of the third wife of King Wu Ding (c.1200 BCE) of the Shang that depicts a man on one side and a woman on the other. She notes the following:
"This figurine must have represented an idealized, philosophic position (certainly conceived of by male philosophers) against which the everyday world could be measured and explained." (258-259).
On the preceding page (257), Linduff points out the censure of female infanticide that is one of Daoism's core beliefs about maintaining equilibrium of the sexes that the earlier quote referred to. What struck me in reading this was the idea that the philosophy, which Linduff identifies as proto-Daoist, measured and explained the phenomena of gender inequality but of course did nothing to modify it. Indeed, there is almost a sense that the philosophy - though preaching equality and passivity - actually existed for the purpose of justifying social norms. Linduff describes on a later page (274) that the Shang viewed the birth of a female child as unlucky and may have committed ritual sacrifice to combat this bad luck. The birth of a female child might have been one of the specific reasons for the sacrifice of women. (They were not the majority of sacrificial victims, though this might by no means have been due to any pretensions of consideration towards women in general. It's possible women were simply viewed as inferior sacrificial victims for most occasions.)
I have the sense from the reading, although that sense may be unwarranted, that in some cases the sacrificial victim might have been the woman who gave birth to the child (and perhaps the child as well?). That is the exact opposite of the philosophy of equilibrium that the jade figurine is thought to represent. Although, of course, I could take comfort in the knowledge that the targeted killing of women isn't just a modern invention but actually has a pedigree of several millennia ... there's equilibrium for you.
In an article on the possible interpretations of the lives and roles of early dynastic Chinese women, Katheryn M. Linduff looks at a jade figurine found in the tomb of the third wife of King Wu Ding (c.1200 BCE) of the Shang that depicts a man on one side and a woman on the other. She notes the following:
"This figurine must have represented an idealized, philosophic position (certainly conceived of by male philosophers) against which the everyday world could be measured and explained." (258-259).
On the preceding page (257), Linduff points out the censure of female infanticide that is one of Daoism's core beliefs about maintaining equilibrium of the sexes that the earlier quote referred to. What struck me in reading this was the idea that the philosophy, which Linduff identifies as proto-Daoist, measured and explained the phenomena of gender inequality but of course did nothing to modify it. Indeed, there is almost a sense that the philosophy - though preaching equality and passivity - actually existed for the purpose of justifying social norms. Linduff describes on a later page (274) that the Shang viewed the birth of a female child as unlucky and may have committed ritual sacrifice to combat this bad luck. The birth of a female child might have been one of the specific reasons for the sacrifice of women. (They were not the majority of sacrificial victims, though this might by no means have been due to any pretensions of consideration towards women in general. It's possible women were simply viewed as inferior sacrificial victims for most occasions.)
I have the sense from the reading, although that sense may be unwarranted, that in some cases the sacrificial victim might have been the woman who gave birth to the child (and perhaps the child as well?). That is the exact opposite of the philosophy of equilibrium that the jade figurine is thought to represent. Although, of course, I could take comfort in the knowledge that the targeted killing of women isn't just a modern invention but actually has a pedigree of several millennia ... there's equilibrium for you.
