Womens Role In Confucianism And Taoism, Within The Patriarchal Society Of China

China is an extremely patriarchal society. The female is generally viewed as weak, dark, and subservient whereas the male is viewed as strong, hot, and dominant. Confucianism encourages this patriarchal society by placing the woman in a servant-like role. Contrary to Confucianism, Taoism places the woman in a mysterious, natural form. Although Confucianism and Taoism have opposing views of woman, they also have some similar ideologies.

Confucianism describes the relationship between husband and wife to be a master/servant relationship. The male’s role is to protect his wife while the wife’s role is to serve her husband. Confucians live in a partilocal society where the wife moves into the husbands’ home. The wife is to practice selfless virtue and serve h

Although very opposite in the roles of women in society, Confucianism and Taoism have similar general views of women. The woman is looked at as weak and soft and is associated with the earth where the male is strong and hard and is associated with heaven. These views are analogous yet the meanings behind them are very different. In Confucianism, the Earth is ruled by and punished by the Heavens, in other words, the woman is ruled by and punished by the man. In Tao te ching the Earth is the “mother” and in the T’ai-p’ing ching Scripture, “followers were prohibited from digging wells because it would be equivalent to wounding one’s own mother.” (EWBR 268) The Heavens and Earth work cooperatively as Yin and Yang. Yin being the dark, cold, damp female and Yang being the sunny, hot, dry, male.

er husband. “Let a woman modestly yield t

Some topics in this essay:
Confucianism Taoism, Earth Giver, Yang Yin, Taoism’s Tao, Confucianism Earth, China China, confucianism taoism, patriarchal society, Heavens Earth, tao te, te ching, patriarchal society china, taoism woman, society china, serve husband, ruled punished, tao te ching,