Research On The Social Status Of The Women In The Han Dynasty

This thesis evaluates the social status of the women in the Han Dynasty in terms of their political rights, the political involvement, property rights, the right of business engagement and education as well as the family relationship by adopting the comprehensive and systematic evaluation system, in view to demonstrating the uniqueness of the women in the Han Dynasty.The women in the Han Dynasty enjoyed no political rights and had no chance to participate in the Politics, whose Political status was quite low. It was the small minority of them that could be involved in the politics because of their special status and their connection with the man in power. However, their participation in the politics didn't represent themselves, neither the female group. What they represented was their husbands'family upholding the masculine authority. The women in the Han Dynasty had property rights protected by law. Their economic activity covered agriculture, commerce and handicraft industry, in which spinning was did the most commonly. Accordingly, they were autarkical to some extent. However, the small scale of the economic activities and the limited income made them not match with the men in terms of the economic significance and the social value. The right to education of the women in the Han Dynasty could not compare with contemporary men, who could only acquire knowledge through home schooling rather than the public education. Moreover, in terms of the education contention, what they mostly received were the slavery education like needlework and women virtues demanded by Confucianism instead of the highly recognized normal education such as confucian classics, history and so on, which Only the women in the well-off family had the opportunity to receive. The Family Status of the women in the Han Dynasty changed with their Family roles and was low as a whole.It can be found that the social status of the women in the Han Dynasty was lower than contemporary men, who remained the lowest in the social ranks, dominated by feudal regime, paternity and authority over the household.