Papers > Livia Kohn
Are Women in Daoism Different From Women in Chinese Society[1]
Daoism in the 2,500 years of its history has related to women in a number of different ways, venerating them as embodiments of the cosmic power of yin, honoring their nurturing and reproductive potential, and worshiping their powers, yet also seeing their bodies as specialized vehicles for attaining the Dao and on occasion reducing them to sexual objects. In its view of women, Daoism is thus as complex and intricate as other religions, where the relationship to the female is often ambiguous and ambivalent. Seeing motherhood, sexuality, fertility, esoteric knowledge, and secret powers as closely linked with the feminine and evaluating it positively, many religions tend to relegate women to inferior status, considering them impure and irresponsible, in all aspects secondary to men, and often suppressing them with greater or lesser severity.
The complexity of women?s position is particularly poignant in the Daoist case, since the religion is caught between its essential cosmological premise of the power of yin and the realities of a strongly patriarchal society following the Confucian model. That is to say, cosmologically and ideally Daoism sees women as expressions of the pure cosmic force of yin, equal and in some ways even superior to yang, and thus necessary for the working of the universe. It also links the Dao itself, the force of creation at the foundation of the cosmos, to the female and describes it as the mother of all beings. There is thus an essential attitude of veneration and respect for the feminine, honoring the cosmic connection as well as the productive and nurtuing nature of women.
On the other hand, Daoism thoughout its history has lived and breathed the social vision of mainstream Confucian society, which was patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal and relegated women to the inner quarters of the house, preventing them from participating in decision-making and larger social issues, and saw them secondary and inferior to men (see Ebrey 1993, 7-8). In Confucian thinking, only sons were valued, since they alone could continue the family line and fulfill the ancestral obligations to the parents. Girls, often not even counted among a man?s children, were commonly treated with disregard and contempt, considered only a burden since they would eventually marry out and continue someone else?s bloodline. They were not seen worthy of education, except in household skills, and their natural cycles rendered them impure and unsuitable for major reponsibilities.
Women in Confucian China were defined entirely through men?being either daughters, wives, mothers, or widows. As the classic work on Confucian women, the Lien? zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Women), ascribed to Liu Xiang (77-6 b.c.e.) of the Han dynasty, says: ?A woman needs someone to depend on. While her father is alive, she is dependent on him. While her husband is alive, she is dependent on him. And while her son is alive, she is dependent on him? (3.5a; Bumbacher 1998, 674; see also O?Hara 1980; Sung 1981; Raphals 1998). According to this model of ?threefold dependency,? men had total control over the lives and activities of their womanfolk, determining the training and treatment of their daughters, able to mistreat and divorce their wives at will, and shunning widows as outcasts and socially useless. [2] Women in these situations, as the Liji (Book of Rites) notes, had the duty of ?threefold obedience? and were strongly encouraged ?to never dare to follow their own heads.? If they failed as wives, they were easily rejected and divorced, reasons including sterility, lewdness, disobedience to the parents-in-law, loquacity, stealing, jealousy, and having a repulsive disease (Lien? zhuan 2.5a; Gulik 1961, 266; Bumbacher 1998, 678). But many never even made it to the status of wife, which was reserved for the senior and only legally married bride.Others were concubines or ?little maids,? menial women who had no property rights or status claims, and were not part of the responsibility of the family?s descendants (Watson 1991, 233-34).
Typically, men had also a great deal of impact on the life style of their mothers. However, here the Confucian virtue of filial piety came into play, demanding full respect for the mother and complete obedience to her wishes. Patriarchy in this mode, then, does not necessarily mean the kind of misogyny observed in the West (Paper 1997, 44), so that even orthodox Confucians, the holders of the Chinese patriarchy, often acknowledged the power of yin, paid deep veneration to the sacrality of the Earth, and honored their mothers, who as matriarchs might rule the household and the family?s estates and as educators often shaped the worldview of the next generation (Bumbacher 1998, 681; Paper 1997, 48). Still, women in traditional Chinese society ideally were prevented from reaching more than a very limited level of influence, and that mainly through motherhood and the control of their sons. A moving document of their plight is the poem by the scholar-official Fu Xuan (217-278), contained in the Yutai xinyong (New Songs for a Jade Terrace), a sixth-century poetry collection:
Bitter indeed it is to be born a woman,
It is difficult to imagine anything so low! . . .
A girl is raised without joy or love,
No one in her family really cares for her.
Grown up, she has to hide in the inner rooms,
Cover her head, be afraid to look others in the face.
And no one sheds a tear when she is married off,
All ties with her own kin are abruptly severed. . . .
Her husband?s love is as aloof as the Milky Way,
Yet she must follow him like a sunflower the sun.
Their hearts are soon as far apart as fire and water,
She is blamed for all and everything that goes wrong.
?(Gulik 1961, 111-12)
In mainstream Chinese culture, therefore, women tended to be considered inferior and associated with a different dimension of the cosmic, physical, and social spectrum. They were limited to the famil and household, the private spheres of life, where they exerted some influence after giving birth to a male heir and often attained the standing of matriarchs and wise counsellors (Wolf 1972; Paper 1997, 93; Bumbacher 1998, 679). Their departure into the public world of politics and government,on the other hand, was seen as going against the cosmic pattern and accordingly judged with disdain. [3]
This ideal vision of Confucianism placing women secondary and in close dependency to men, however, remains just that: an ideal vision. It was held up as the model to strive for but as all models was only realized to a certain degree and with very little uniformity. As Dorothy Ko says, ?The inner/outer construct does not demarcate mutually exclusive social and symbolic spaces; instead the two define and constitute each other according to shifting contexts and perspectives? (1994, 13; Grant 1995, 30). The apparently rigorous discrimination of women, therefore, was modified in numerous ways, and the ideal norms, the actual activities, and the self-perception of women were not always on the same wavelength (Ko 1994, 8).
For example, women of the lower classes had to pull their full weight, not only in running households but also in doing agricultural work and managing businesses (Ko 1994), so that they were much more visible and less restricted than their upper-class counterparts (Bray 1997). If they ended up in the entertainment world, they were not inevitably chattels of cruel madams, but in some cases found ?opportunities to develop their literary, musical, and artistic talents? in this milieu (Ebrey 1993, 5). Women of the upper classes frequently functioned as active political and intellectual agents, not only educating their sons but also giving advice to their husbands and thus influencing policy making and social realities (Raphals 1998, 4, 259). These women, moreover, carried responsibility not only for their husband?s clan but also maintained close relations to their native family, thus cementing social alliances and forging political bonds (Thatcher 1991, 45). They may not have mixed freely with males beyond their immediate household, but they created women?s networks that carried considerable weight in the community (Bray 1997).
Also, social rules changed over time, so that, for example, a divorce by mutual consent became legally possible in the Tang dynasty. Women from the Song onward maintained ownership of their dowry and could accumulate quite a bit of wealth in their own right (Ebrey 1991; 1993, 6). In the Ming and Qing women?s overall literacy grew to the point that we know of over three thousand anthologies of women?s poems from late imperial China (Grant 1996, 53). Widows, far from being only victims and outcasts, were often strong agents who made independent decisions, easily remarried in the Tang, held on to property in the Song, and in late imperial China were lauded highly if they remained true to their husband?s clan and memory (Ebrey 1993, 5, 204; see also Holmgren 1981; Mann 1987).
As granting greater autonomy to women was not incompatible with Chinese culture (Ebrey 1993, 5), so the idea of guardianship over women in many cases did not result in their utter dependence and misery but often guaranteed their care and security. As Susan Mann says, the texts also show a dimension of the ?marital relationship that emphasizes affection, partnership, and shared responsibility? (1991, 208; Overmyer 1981, 93). Being confined to the inner chambers, moreover, may seem restrictive to us, but for the overwhelming majority of women in traditional China who married and did not pursue an independent career (Ebrey 1993, 7), it could also represent a position of safety and refuge. Women forced out of their seclusion due to political upheaval or economic hardship tended to express their yearning for the peace, tranquility, and security of the inner court (see Ko 2001). Staying at home, surrounded by familiar figures and things, performing tasks well under their control served as much to reassure the women?s identity and self-worth as it helped to maintain the proper social order. Being a woman in Confucian China, therefore, although at first glance?and as presented in the wake of the May Fourth Movement (Ko 1994, 1-2)?a lowly and dependent situation, was not without its benefits nor was the position of women as limited and the Chinese establishment as monolithic as it may seem.
The role of Daoist women in this context is just as multifaceted, ambiguous, and ambivalent as women?s reality within the Confucian social structure. Normatively, Daoism reflects the mainstream vision of women, and female lay followers of Daoism were usually married and subscribed to the program set out by mainstream society, remaining subject to Confucian restrictions. In another reflection of the mainstream ideal, there are also some Daoist practices that involve the exploitation of women, either sexually or socially. Yet Daoism goes beyond mainstream Chinese values in various ways.
Their most fundamental characteristic is their cosmic nature of yin, their representation of a major aspect of cosmic unfolding: the quiet, latent, preserving, supporting part of universal qi without which all the activities and high flights of yang would not be possible.Yin is dark, shady, sinking, soft, and weak, but it is also empowering and necessary, a force in its own right that all, not only women, have to attain fully for self-realization. Being inherently part of this power of yin, women have sexual power and potency which can be exploited by men, but which can also be used to control others and to create energetic cycles in accordance with the Dao.
Also, since they represent half of the cosmic powers, women have the ability to run households, manage affairs, supervise palaces, and take on major responsibilities. They can be well educated and write lofty poems, they can be in charge of the sacred scriptures, they can educate sons and give sage advice to elders and rulers. Women can attain magical powers just as well as men, and in some cases even surpass them; they can reach immortality and serve as teachers and the revealers of scriptures; they can undergo full ordination and occupy high priestly ranks and serve as abbots of communities. The women described in the literature are competent and confident, strong characters who will do whatever is necessary to fulfill their destiny in the Dao and thereby enhance the harmony of the cosmos.
The actions necessary tend to involve a disentangement from the family and mainstream society, in some cases a smooth process even desired by the family, but most of the time a difficult path. Women as much as men are required to continue the family line, serve their parents and their communities, and are not free to leave at will. Men in classical hagiograhies, unless they are younger sons and let go more easily, tend to marry and produce offspring, then leave their wives and children. Women, too, in most cases are widowed when they enter the religious path. If they wish to leave at a younger age, they have a more difficult time, needing to resist the pressures of marriage and gain as much control over their lives as possible. Often this happens with the help of radical fasting, food being one area where they can exert control (Waltner 1987, 123). The gods, favoring the girl?s actions help by giving her the ability to survive without nourishment, causing the parents to face unbending resistance and the potential danger of losing their daughter to emaciation. They eventually give in, some gracefully, some with great reluctance.
The drama of disentanglement is a classic motif in the hagiographies, where it shows the strong determination and supernatural connection of the future Daoist. It also plays out in popular tales, where it follows the classic outline.
The main plot is that of a girl, often of wealthy if not aristocratic birth, born to childless parents. Hearng of the miseries of motherhood in this life and the horrors of hell in the next, she decides to pursue the religious life. Her parents, in particular her father, oppose this decision and pressure her into marriage, often resorting to physical violence to make their point. . . . With a combination of unshakable determination and supernatural help, she eventually becomes a bodhisattva or an immortal and, in a final act of reintegration, returns to save the family that had initailly ostracized her. (Grant 1995, 45-46)
Despite all contrariness during the breaking-away from family and society, religious women come back to serve the community, often having gained powers of healing, divine contact, and prognostication.
The concern of many hagiographies with the relation of Daoist women to family and society reflects the mainstream tendency to see women in relational terms. Women are yin, men are yang; women are inside, men are outside. They belong to different spheres, but they interact and are both necessary (Mann 1997, 15; Ko 1994, 13). Also, women relate to men as daughters, wives, mothers, widows, and concubines, their identity determined by the connection and their relative positions. In mainstream society the vision of women, therefore, includes erotic images of dominance and submission of sexual partners, the understanding of the mother as indulgent and caring, the ideal of the determined widow who will sacrifice everything for chastity and family loyalty, the contrast between the jealous wife and the smitten husband, as well as the overall image of the emotion-ridden female versus the man who follows a rigorous code of ethics and social rules (Ebrey 1993, 261-62).
While all these images and ideals could provide women with a sense of purpose and self-worth and while there was room to attain a greater degree of happiness and comforts within the social constraints, the satisfaction of women was understood as occurring exclusively in connection with family and society, through the flourishing of her clan, the success of her husband, and the growth of her children.Women, in short, were seen to define themselves entirely in relation to others, preferably males.
In contrast to this understanding, the ideal women of Daoism define themselves through others only in a secondary way. Their primary identity comes from creating a relationship both narrower and wider than family and society: by concerning themselves with their own bodies and with the greater universe of the Dao. The two, of course, coincide in the Daoist vision, where the gods of the stars reside also in the body, and where the cultivation of bodily qi leads to complete control over self and nature. Daoist women are more inward-looking than their mainstream counterparts, either because they are born with ?immortals? bones? and inherently gifted for the religious life or because they are so disillusioned and frustrated with mainstream life that they turn to the Dao. The turning to the Dao, then, is always primarily a turning away from the outside world of relationships and towards the inner world of monthly cycles, energy flow, meditations, and ecstatic visions. Through this turning-away, moreover, Daoist women achieve a competence and independence far beyond their mainstream counterparts. They engage in celestial visions and journey to the heavens above; they reach ordination ranks and gain magical and ritual powers.
For women in Daoism, the distinction between yin and yang, inner and outer, is not between male and female, society and family. It has shifted to family and body, submission to others and dominance over oneself, outer obedience and inner determination, ethical demands and religious urges. What was yin before, the inner circle of the family, is yang now?the family as the outer sphere in contrast to the cosmic body within. Obedience and submission, yin virtues and positive traits in mainstream culture, similarly have shifted to being yang attitudes of betrayal to the true values of yin?dominance over the self and determination in the Dao. The Daoist path, therefore, moves the yin-yang, inner-outer dichotomy of Chinese mainstream society into a new set of yin-yang, inner-outer values, making women more yin, more inner, more focused on themselves. In this respect, then, women are the ideal practitioners of the Dao, realizing their cosmic nature of yin by moving closer towards the inner circle of the Dao.
The shift away from the relation to society and towards a greater concern with inner states and cosmic attainments holds true not only for Daoist, but also for Buddhist women in traditional China. Still, women in Buddhism are seen considerably different from their Daoist counterparts. They are described as essentially imperfect, helpless victims of sensuality and desire, seats of lasciviousness and lewdness (Faure 1998, 79). Women are dirty and foul, seductive and enticing, uncontrollable and wild. As a result, Buddhist nuns were considered dangerous and placed in a position of dependence and control. They had to observe many more rules than monks and had to be extremely careful to avoid all contact with them.
Daoists, too, were admonished to avoid all casual contact with the opposite sex, and several rules of the Laojun yibai bashi jie (The One Hundred and Eighty Precepts of Lord Lao, in DZ 786, YJQQ 39), the key code of the Celestial Masters that has influenced all later sets of Daoist precepts (Penny 1996; Kohn 2004b), prohibit being secluded, traveling, or speaking with a woman alone (nos. 139, 161, 162). It also says: ?When in mixed company, do not sit together for a shared meal nor touch the hands of a person of the opposite sex? (no. 164; see Hendrischke and Penny 1996, 22). In the monastic institutions of the high middle ages, too, men and women were strictly segregated and prohibited from all casual contact or discussions, because ?if they do not even see an attractive person of the opposite sex, their minds will not get agitated,? as stated in the Qianzhen ke (Rules for a Thousand Perfected, DZ 1410, 7a) of the early seventh century.
However, the rule had exceptions. Male Daoists were allowed to lecture lay women on the scriptures as long as they were not alone with one of them. At the time of ordination it was permitted for men and women to enter each other?s quarters after receiving permission from the masters. They were admonished, however, to behave with dignity and were not allowed to go off individually by themselves or in groups of two, nor must they enter any private quarters (Qianzhen ke 16a). If, furthermore, a monk came across a woman in danger of drowning or burning, he must not ?hesitate to reach out a hand to help,? because this contact was ?not in violation of the rules? (Qianzhen ke 11b). Similarly, when his own mother, sister, or aunt was ?sick or in some kind of distress at home, he could go and serve to support her? (11b), or in some special cases bring her to the monastery and set up a hut for her nearby (Bumbacher 2000a, 246; Kohn 2003).
The contact of Daoists with women was therefore circumscribed but not paranoid, the rules of Daoists for women were in no way excessive beyond those of men, and, most importantly, nowhere do Daoist texts denounce women as lascivious and evil. Why is this? Why such misogyny in Buddhism?and Christianity or Islam? Why not in Daoism? The answer lies in the understanding of the body, and particulary of men?s sexuality, in these different traditions. While in India and the West the body is seen as an obstacle to salvation and the purity of the soul, and sexuality is the most pronounced and hardest to tame force within the body, in Daoism the body is the basis for transformation, and sexual energy is highly valued as the one form of qi that can be actively aroused and consciously felt at the beginning of the path. Thus celibacy in Daoism was predicated on the retention, inner circulation, and refinement of jing or ?essence,? an the avoidance of sexual intercourse was not to subdue the body but, on the contrary, to enhance its inner strength and cosmic connection (Eskildsen 1998, 67).
Men in Daoism, therefore, had to actively confront and use their sexuality rather than deny, suppress, and eradicate it. Women, representative of sexual enticement in all cultures, were accordingly seen in a positive light?as sources of sexual fluids, partners in the arousal and enhancement of sexual energies, and teachers of sexual methods and bodily control. More than that, women were admired for their inherent power of yin, a power men wished to refine and cultivate, and for their natural ability of pregnancy, a state men needed to attain in a spiritual way while pursuing immortality. The very substances and states in a woman?s body most polluting and most offensive in mainstream society and Buddhism?her menstrual blood and the birth of a child?in Daoism come to be key factors in the cultivation of immortality: blood as the female form of jing and thus the equivalent of semen; the birth of the embryo as the ultimate liberation of the spirit from the constraints of this world.
Sexual union, moreover, was part of the practice in all forms of Daoism, whether with real women in rituals of the ?harmonization of qi,? with celestial deities in pure, otherworldly encounters among the stars, with partners in the preparation of inner alchemy, or within the self in the rhythmic circulation and mingling of yin and yang. While it is regretful that the vision of women in religion often has more to do with men?s relation to their own sexuality than with the appreciation of a fellow human being, in Daoism this trait has played out positively: women as described in the literature are for the most part valued as individuals and seats of cosmic yin, respected for their natural gifts, and acknowledged for the capabilities and strengths they can attain.
[1] This paper is based on the introduction and conclusion of the forthcoming book Women in Daoism, by Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn (Three Pines Press, Aug. 03).
[2] Wives were seen as subject to their husbands? control, and the Chinese custom of footbinding?even if distasteful to many Confucians?made women into status symbols and expressions of conspicous consumption (Ko 2001, 151; see also Levy 1966; Paper 1997, 91-92; Ko 2002). Still, even footbinding was done by women to women and spread because of the need for increased attractiveness (Ebrey 1993, 266). Daughters were often seen as a burden, and female infanticide has been quite common, both traditionally and even today, under the one-child policy (see Gulik 1961, 111; Carmody 1979, 68). Widows, unless regning a household as the mothers of sons, were shunned and had low social standing (Waltner 1981, 131). For more on marriage norms in traditional China, see Guisso 1981; Holmgren 1995; Watson and Ebrey 1991; Ebrey 1993.
[3] The case in point here is the continued bad reputation women rulers get, such as the medieval Empress Wu, the late Qing empress dowager Zixi, and Mao?s wife Jiang Qing. See Fitzgerald 1955; Bland 1910; Witke 1977.