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Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, 1947-

Title The inner quarters : marriage and the lives of Chinese women in the Sung period / Patricia Buckley Ebrey.

Publication Info. Berkeley : University of California Press, [1993]
©1993

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xviii, 332 pages)
text file
Series ACLS Humanities E-Book (Series)
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-219) and index.
Contents Separating the sexes -- Meanings of marriage -- Making a match -- Rites and celebrations -- Dowries -- Upper-class wives as inner helpers -- Women's work making cloth -- Husband-wife relations -- Motherhood -- Widowhood -- Second marriages -- Concubines -- Continuing the family through women -- Adultery, incest, and divorce -- Reflections on women, marriage, and change.
Summary The Sung Dynasty (960-1279) was a paradoxical era for Chinese women. This was a time when footbinding spread, and Confucian scholars began to insist that it was better for a widow to starve than to remarry. Yet there were also improvements in women's status in marriage and property rights. In this thoroughly original work, one of the most respected scholars of premodern China brings to life what it was like to be a woman in Sung times, from having a marriage arranged, serving parents-in-law, rearing children, and coping with concubines, to deciding what to do if widowed.Focusing on marriage, Patricia Buckley Ebrey views family life from the perspective of women. She argues that the ideas, attitudes, and practices that constituted marriage shaped women's lives, providing the context in which they could interpret the opportunities open to them, negotiate their relationships with others, and accommodate or resist those around them.Ebrey questions whether women's situations actually deteriorated in the Sung, linking their experiences to widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes of this period. She draws from advice books, biographies, government documents, and medical treatises to show that although the family continued to be patrilineal and patriarchal, women found ways to exert their power and authority. No other book explores the history of women in pre-twentieth-century China with such energy and depth.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Language English.
Subject Marriage -- China -- History.
Marriage.
China.
History.
Women -- China -- Social conditions.
Women.
Social conditions.
China -- Social conditions -- 960-1644.
Chronological Term 960-1644
Subject Women -- Social conditions.
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Abuse -- Domestic Partner Abuse.
HISTORY -- Asia -- General.
Sociology & Social History.
Social Sciences.
Family & Marriage.
Indexed Term Women Social conditions.
China.
Genre/Form History.
Electronic books.
Subject Marriage.
Women.
Womyn.
Other Form: Print version: The inner quarters Berkeley : University of California Press, c1993. 0520081560 (alk. paper) (DLC) 92031376
ISBN 9780520913486 ebook
0520913485
0520081560 alkaline paper
0520081587 paperback alkaline paper
0585104344
9780585104348
9780520081567
0520081560
9780520081581
0520081587