| Liu Xiang's Lienü Zhuan is the first existing female textbook in Chinese history.Originally,this book is a book for the emperor but transforms into a classical female textbook in the process of thousand-year-dissemination.Its biographic format and diverse female characters have an important influence on the development of traditional female education in China.With the theoretical perspective of education and gender philosophy,this study uses historical literature methods,historicalcomparative methods,story morphology and other research methods to explore the connotation,the origin as well as the influence of the female character in LienüZhuan,especially its influence on the traditional female education in China.The Han Dynasty is a unified nation,it has clear territory and its economy develops very well.At that time,the male social moral normal has already been formed through the Chinese classics but has no unified female moral standard.The centralized state needs to establish a relatively stable female moral standard urgently.Liu Xiang is born into a scholar-gentry family.His book Lienü Zhuan,written in 16 BC,caters to this need.Since Liu Xiang is a loyal courtier,the purpose of this book is to exhort the emperor and correct indoctrination.In this book,Liu Xiang shapes seven kinds of the good and evil female character,including the maternal models,the worthy and enlightened,the sympathetic and wise,the chaste and compliant,the principled and righteous,the accomplished rhetoricians and the depraved and favored.The first six kinds are virtuous women.But the last kind is vicious,beautiful but evil.The seven categories of female characters play diverse roles,such as daughter,wife,and mother.Their social status covers all social levels,from the empress to servant.Revitalize both the country and family are their responsibility.Weaving,housekeeping,and child-rearing are women's duties.Seven kinds of female characters show that the goal of traditional female education is to shape women who have both virtue and reason.The female character in Lienü Zhuan has exemplary characters.This is because they come from the historical record and have wide time-space distribution.In terms of the historical sources,most of the female characters derive from the cultural classics written during the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties,which endow the female character with historical reality.This kind of reality makes the readers build an identity with the female character easily.In terms of the time distribution,the female character distributes in several dynasties,including Five Emperors,Xia,Shang,Western Zhou,Spring and Autumn,Warring States,Qin,Han,which can help female readers to establish a sense of Chinese national identity.The ideological connotation of female education is consistent with content of the classics written in the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties.The narrative mode of the female character inherits the style of narrating the man characters in history books of the Pre-Qin and Han Dynasties.In the process of telling and retelling the female character in later generations,LienüZhuan becomes a classical female textbook and casts the traditional view of women both in China and East Asia.From the Han Dynasty to the Wei-Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties,the original text and genealogy framework of Lienü Zhuanis formed.At this phase,the maternal models and the worthy and enlightened are praised by people.During East Han,the ritual thought in Lienü Zhuan was affirmed by the White Tiger Tongyi and authority them by the official text.“The three obediences”,“Three cardinal principles and Six rulers” are some ideology from the White Tiger Tongyi,which becomes the golden rule of traditional female education.Inspired by Lienü Zhuan,the women textbooks which are not named after Lienü Zhuan,such as Ban Zhao's The Commandments for Female,which states the “Four Virtues” guiding the direction of women's self-cultivation.The daughter's teaching thought of Yan's Family Motto promotes the development of family education.Drawing on the gender perspective adopted by the Lienü Zhuan.Fan Ye creates a new category “Female Biography” in the Post-Han Book,which inspires the historians who write the official national history book including “Female Biography” in it.From the Tang Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the original text of Lienü Zhuan and its genealogy continues to develop.The woman character created in the book not only reflects but also influences the characters of the woman educational thought during several generations.The description of the female character in the original Lienü Zhuan shows the attitude to ritual thought transforms from paying attention to speculative.The simulation textbooks of LienüZhuan highlight the class consciousness and neglect the evil female character,which shows the maintenance of social order and female indoctrination.The textbooks which are not named after the Lienü Zhuan emphasizes the characters of the virtuous wife and wise mother.One book puts forward the views that women's moral first and talent last,which complements the limitation of the official female education ideological connotation.The transformation of female character in official history from pluralism to monogamy means the formation of women's unidirectional moral norms.the hightlight of the virtue of female chastity shows the intention of historians to educate and lead men to set up the concept of family and state and safeguard the interests of them effectively.In a word,the classic female textbook Lienü Zhuan collects the female character from the Five Emperors to the Han Dynasty and they became the symbolic figures of women in later generations gradually.The seven types of female character have been changed shile they are handing down.The maternal models and the worthy and enlightened gradually evolves into the virtuous wife and wise mother.The chaste and compliant evolved into courageous even sacrifice oneself for maintaining one's virtue or integrity.The depraved and favored gradually lost its voice.People's attitude is different towards female talent such as the worthy and enlightened and the accomplished rhetoricians.There is a close relationship between the original book of Lienü Zhuan and the development of the female teaching genealogy,which constitutes an important carrier of Kundao.They all undertake the mission of promoting the development of traditional female education and maintaining social order. |
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