Family Economic Status Of Women In The Tang And Song Dynasties

There's a famous saying in China: Women hold up half the sky. But in accient China which based on agriculture, the "half the sky" meant low status. In fact, women's social status was much lower than that of men in accient society. While they still played very important parts in family in small-scale peasant economy. Their status in family economy was different from that of Social status.The article is divided into three parts. It studied the three steps in women's Life in Tang and Song Dynasty in turn. They are daughters' economic status in parents' home, daughter-in-laws' economic status in husband's home and mother-in-laws'economic status in family.The first part studied the daughters' economic status in parents' home.Daughters made contributions to their parent's home, they also got part or the whole family property by dowry, private property, and inheritance by will. But they didn't succeed the family property as sons did, because daughters couldn't succeed to the sect.The Second part is on the economic status of daughter-in-law. There are three aspects:the contribution to husband's family, the ownership to the family property and the rights of inheritance, the rights of management to the family property. After their marriage, they left their parents'home and joined in another family. Their economic status was changed as the change of their identity.The last part is on the mother-in-law's economic status in family. It was reflected in three aspects:their source of income, the ownership to family property, the rights of management to the family property. Mother-in-law's economic status was higher than that of daughter and daughter-in-law, while daughter and daughter-in-law were close.The economic status difference between the women in Tang and Song Dynasty wasn't so great as people imagined. Women's economic status wasn't influenced much by the change of dynasty; It reflected the rule of: rights coincide with duties.