Ban Zhao’s Lessons

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***PLEASE ANSWER AND NUMBER EACH QUESTION********

Education in the Confucian classics was an important avenue for gaining high social status and political power. However, Confucian doctrine did not accord women equal status with men; women were considered inferior and unworthy or incapable of learning. Nevertheless, Confucian society did honor women as both mothers and mothers-in-law, and with status came power within the family. Ban Zhao/ Pan Chao (45-116 ce) was the sister of famous historian, Ban Gu, and outstanding female Confucian scholar. Zhao’s husband died when she was young and she never remarried. Instead, she devoted herself to scholarship. Please read Zhao’s Lessons for Women, her most famous work, and answer the following questions:

1) What were the seven womanly virtues she wrote about? What were women’s roles and purposes? On what one subject does Ban Zhao insist on the rights of women? (2/2)

2) Does she hold a romantic view of marriage? (2/2)

3) Do you believe her work challenged patriarchy? Did it make patriarchy less oppressive for women or not? (2/2)

After answering those three questions, please analyze the attached sketch, which was created by a male artist, and answer the following questions:

4) What does this sketch suggest about the ongoing image of Ban Zhao? Does the image correctly reflect Ban Zhao’s own ideas about women? (2/2)

5) Is this painting designed to illustrate women’s inferiority? (2/2)

Portrait by Jim Guliang. The woodcut was published around 1690, early
i n the Qing dynasty and hundreds of years after Ban Zhao lived. The
image i s obviously the artist’s invention, and illustrates not Ban Zhao her-
self, but her legacy. (Wan-go Weng Archive)

Ban Zhao’s manual about women was reprinted frequently, all the way through the
19th century. Artists who sketched Ban Zhao reflected the author’s ongoing importance,
but since they had no idea what she actually looked like, they tried to convey what
seemed suitable’ to them in light of her legacy.