As a patriarchy society that has been established thousands of years ago, the leadership role in a traditional Chinese family has always been taken by the males. There is an old saying in China, that “The husband sings and the wife follows.” However, that it not necessarily the the entirety of the truth.
The role of men in the traditional Chinese family is the representative of the family in the society. In comparison, women are not supposed to be exposed to the social lives of men. There are often untold rules that displayed the representative status of men in the family. Such rules tend to be more complicated if the family possesses more wealth or has higher social class. The seating arrangements in a room is one direct example of such rules. In the book Jin Ping Mei, the main seat facing all other seats is always taken by the host, if he is present. When Hsi-men Ching, host of the Hsi-men family, returned to the house, Wu K’ai’s wife, despite being a guest in the house, “promptly moved over in order to get out of the way (Lanling, 274).”
The representitive status of a man has greater implications than its literal meaning. If a man recieves honor in the society, or has made achievements that makes the lord, governor, or the emperor happy, not only himself, but his entire household would be honored and awarded. When the opposite happens, not only the man himself gets punished, but his entire household as well. In the book Three Kingdoms, Tung Cheng and other five conspirator’s crimes infuriated Chancellor Tsao, which led to the execution of their entire households. (Luo, 44). Over 700 people were killed, innocent women and children included. Cruel as such an example is, it shows that women were considered accessories of men in traditional Chinese families.
The role of women outside the family is extremely limited due to the male dominant social ideology. When her husband got into trouble, Li Ping-erh was expected to help pull strings and get him off the hook. However, she has no way but to appeal for help from Hsi-men Ching (Lanling, 276). Another example of the oppression of the role of women is rather extreme. When Tsao, the Chancellor of the Eastern Han Dynasty want to execute Empress Tung, Empress Fu persuaded him not to execute her immediately, but to wait until she has delivered (Luo, 45). Although Fu was only trying to save Empress Tung, the reasoning used showed that the primary duty of a women in a royal family is to give birth to new royal members. Such a duty is even regarded more valuable than the life of women’s.
Despite the oppression on women in traditional Chinese families, some women were able gain more control over their fate and a voice in the family. Both Yueh-niang and Li Ping-erh in Jin Ping Mei are examples of such clever women. Perhaps a bit too clever in Li Ping-erh’s case. Women have the advantage over men in being more detailed oriented and resourceful in the neighborhood, granting them the role of the advisor in a family, while the men act as decision makers who take the advice. For example, when Hsi-men wanted to transfer the silver and treasures from the Hua household, Yueh-niang suggested: “If we bring the stuff in the chests in at the front door, we can hardly avoid attracting the attention of the neighbors. The best thing to do is, thus and so, of we hoist it over the wall at night, it will be less conspicuous (Lanling, 278).”
Such cleverness make them the reliable advisers in the house, in addition to the household managers and treasurers. In comparison, the men were only responsible for the major decisions, absent for most of the “trivial matters.” Both Yueh-niang and Li Ping-erh complained a lot about their husbands’ lack of responsibility in the house and the constant fooling-around outside (Lanling, 275). For clever women, being treasurer of the house can mean the access to the biggest power in the family. When her father in law put all his property in the hands of Li Ping-erh for safekeeping, he would never have thought of how his daughter-in-law used his property against his son and indirectly killed him (Lanling, 277-279). In such rare cases in ancient China, women have turned their weakness into a strength, replacing their husbands to become the dominating roles in their families.
In Jin Ping Mei, which depicts the everyday city life of the common folks in the Song Dynasty, the author wrote: “It has always been true that: Man is responsible for what lies outside the household; Woman is responsible for what lies within it.(Lanling, 284).” Despite the seemingly dominant role of the males, the importance of women in traditional chinese families should not be underestimated. As the manager and treasurer of the household, they can have bigger and more complicated responsibilities than men do.