A Study On The Phenomenon Of Jealous Women In Song Dynasty

In a patriarchal society,compliance is the basic requirement of society and the state for women.Jealous women will not only be condemned by public opinion,but also be abandoned or subject to legal sanctions.In order to maintain and realize the Confucian ideal gender order,the state and society pay continuous attention to the phenomenon of jealous women.The phenomenon of jealous women in the Song Dynasty is less than that in the Tang and Ming and Qing Dynasties,but in the process of the revival of Confucianism,this social phenomenon that is contrary to the gender order of men and women has attracted more attention.Song Confucians discussed the problem of jealous women under the framework of family and state governance,not only paying attention to its harm,but also trying to explore more ways to control the phenomenon of jealous women.The root of female jealousy is related to the marriage system of monogamy and concubinage in feudal society,and the existence of jealous women in Song Dynasty is no exception.However,the continuous development of the economy in the Song Dynasty has also become an important cause of female jealousy.The economic development of the Song Dynasty led to the influence of money on men and women in marriage,resulting in the social phenomenon of marriage on money,resulting in women ’s psychological comparison,and then evolved into envy.After marriage,the husband ’s frequent concubines and prostitution not only break the wife ’s monopoly on her husband,but also let the wife face more threats,which has a significant role in promoting the formation of female envy.The objects of female envy in the Song Dynasty were mainly concubines and maidservants,and a few women would point their envy at their husbands or wives.Different from the Tang Dynasty,the main manifestation of wife envy in the Song Dynasty was to prohibit her husband from taking concubines,abusing and killing,beating and scolding concubines and maidservants.The main manifestation of concubine envy was to exclude her wife by relying on her husband ’s love,and both of them seldom took her husband as the object of envy.With the revival of Confucianism in the Song Dynasty,women ’s jealousy gradually hidden in the heart.The phenomenon of jealous women in the Song Dynasty society caused different degrees of social harm,and also caused the understanding and thinking of the Song people.Women ’s jealousy of their husbands or their offspring is not only a challenge to the Confucian ethics,but also a great threat to the continuation of individuals and families,so that jealous women become a social phenomenon of concern in the Song Dynasty.However,not all scholars opposed to jealous women.In the poems,cases and the remarks of Confucian scholars that reflected the daily life of the Song people,some scholars held a sympathetic attitude towards women ’s jealousy.The continuous understanding and thinking of the phenomenon of jealous women also prompted the scholars to control the phenomenon of jealous women,resulting in the gradual introversion of women ’s jealousy.As a private matter in the family,jealous women cannot be directly controlled by scholars,so they adopt the way of education.The way of educating jealous women in the Song Dynasty was not only condemned in the notebook novels,but also set an example of women who were not jealous in the family norms and epitaphs,praised the virtues of women who were not jealous,and encouraged women to follow suit.In the widely circulated divination in the Song Dynasty,there were also inscriptions on jealous women,warning women not to envy or warning men to prevent jealous women.Through the control of the phenomenon of jealous women by scholars,the daily behavior of women in the Song Dynasty gradually conformed to the Confucian gender order.Even if there were still jealous women in society,most women ’s behavior had been restricted.In the case of the lack of female discourse power in the Song Dynasty,the image of jealous women in the literati ’s works was gradually enriched,and it had an impact on later literary sketches.Different from the previous generation,in the image of jealous women depicted by the Song people,not only the jealous women are the image characteristics of jealous women,but also the jealous women have become the representative behavior of jealous women.Behind the image of a variety of jealous women in the Song Dynasty,it also reflects that the right of women to envy is gradually squeezed.The image of jealous women written by scholars in the Song Dynasty was also transformed into characters in novels and operas under the appropriate social environment in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties,and has been spread so far.