"Yin and yang have divergent natures; male and female have different conduct. Yang has moral power through toughness; yin is useful through gentleness.” - Ban Zhao, Nu Jie (Lessons for Women) circa 106 CE

            In the ancient Chinese family dynamic, females always deferred to males.  Males, and fathers, especially, were seen as authoritarian figures who were, while respected, often feared.  Males were also expected to be the breadwinners of the family; they were responsible for providing for the household and directly contributing to society through their careers.  Females were simply expected to take care of the household, raise the children, and follow males all their lives: as daughters, females were expected to follow their fathers and brothers, as wives, their husbands, and as mothers, their sons.

This dynamic was due to the fact that the ancient Chinese people had extremely strong, traditional ideas about the differences between males and females.  As Ban Zhao’s quote (above) reflects, the Chinese viewed the male and the female as complementary forces with the male as the dominating yang force and the female as the gentle yin force.  Not only that, but the Chinese saw yin and yang as part of the natural order of the universe and likewise viewed the differences between men and women as also part of the natural order.  People believed that women were both morally and intellectually inferior to men and thus needed men’s control and guidance.   With the conformist and extremely traditional environment of ancient China where submission to authority was prized as a virtue, women were brought up believing they were naturally inferior to men.  There was very little resistance to the idea that, as Wei-Ming Tu writes in his article “Probing the ‘Three Bonds’ and ‘Five Relationships’ in Confucian Humanism, “the female under no circumstances should assume a dominating role.”   Patricia Ebrey, in her article “Women, Marriage, and the Family in Chinese History,” sums it up nicely, saying how the proper social role of men was to lead and the proper social role of women was to follow.

            Males were especially expected to lead the family.  As heads of households, they were often feared because they followed the Confucian model of a stern and remote figure.  As Walter H. Slote, in his article “Psychocultural Dynamics within the Confucian Family,” describes how fathers were expected to “teach, direct, and discipline the children.”  Fathers, as men, were also permitted few displays of affection: men were expected to be strong and logical; being emotional and affectionate belonged in the women’s realm.   Without emotional bonds toward the father, other family members only knew him and feared him as an authoritative, strict disciplinarian.        The father not only had disciplinary power over family members, but also had complete legal authority over them and the right to arrange his children’s marriages.

            Females, on the other hand, had much less power, though they still had responsibilities.  They were expected to cook and clean the house, as men were not to be bothered with such trivial things.  In addition to typical household activities, they had the responsibility to raise the children properly.  If children were not raised properly and ever broke with social decorum, the collectivist Chinese society considered not only the child, but the family as well, at fault.  This was a result of how, in ancient China, as Slote puts it, “one’s identity and sense of self is inextricably established only within the context of the whole.”  Therefore, improper conduct by any one family member cast shame upon the whole family.   Women were to see that the children they raised brought honor to the family, not shame.   Also, if females were ever widowed, they were not to remarry.  Sima Guang, an ancient Chinese historian and scholar, supporting the popular view of widow chastity, declared that as “loyal subjects do not serve two masters…chaste women do not serve two husbands.”