Inventing Familial Agency from Powerlessness: Ban Zhao's Lessons for Women

Author:

• Lin-Lee Lee (National Kaohsiung Normal Univ)

Abstract:

For many centuries Chinese women have been trained to San-chong Si-de or "Three Obediences and Four Virtues," as set forth in Nüjie, (Lessons for Women), written in 106 C.E. by Ban Zhao, during the East Han dynasty. This essay reinterprets the oldest extant and most important female conduct manual in Chinese in order to question the traditional analysis that Ban's Lessons for Women silences Chinese women. It seeks also to advance our understanding of the non-Western rhetorical tradition by arguing that Western feminists' approach to the idea of agency is not appropriate to understanding Chinese women's agency. It aims to delineate a different concept of agency, based on Lessons for Women, which is familial, forged out of the powerlessness of individual women, an agency that is communal, indirect, and conferred by others.