Women In The Tang Dynasty And Taoism

With the development of study of women problem, the concrete and delicate problems with women such as living ways, life pursuits, religions, sensation have got more and more attention. In Tang dynasty, great importance has been given to women problems. As for the relationship between women and religion, there are many works about women and Buddhism, but few works about women and Taoism, In recent years, scholars have begun to put focus on feminism and poems and published some works, which however, can't reflect the relationship between women and Taoism in Tang dynasty. Therefore, it's very necessary to study the relationship between women and Taoism in Tang dynasty as a whole, which can not only fill the vacancy in the study of women in Tang dynasty, but also reflect the influence of religion on them completely.This thesis is divided into seven parts:The first part is preface, which mainly includes five aspects: to introduce the study of women in Tang dynasty; to introduce the status and limitation of the study of women and Taoism; to explain the meaning and value of the subject of the thesis; to illustrate the relevant documents in the literature; to introduce the basic structure and writing method of the thesis.The second part is to analyze the stratum of women with belief in Taoism in Tang dynasty. According to kinds of documents, the women with belief in Taoism in Tang dynasty come from different classes, includes the class of feudal scholar-bureaucrat composed of noble women of the classes and royal families, the wives and daughters, maid-in-waitings of offices of underclass, and the underclass composed of common people, lady's-maids and prostitutes.The third part is to discuss the form of belief and religion life of women in Tang dynasty. According to the analysis of the documents, there are two types about the form of belief of women: one is to do the belief at home, or enter the temples for belief, or not, the religion life is very strict, they cultivate in the house alone, or live a very simple life, or read classic works, or have a very insipid meal; the other is to go out to be the Taoists, cultivating in the temple. There is more freedom of religion life than that of women at home, because they can seek celestial beings and doctrines, make friends with same doctrines, build temples and so on.