Chinese people

Chinese people have always put a lot of emphasis on everybody acting the right way for their position in life. They thought poor people should act different from rich people, and women should act different from men, and city people should act different from country people.

In China, people thought your most important relationship was with your family. Kids often lived in the same house not just with their parents, but also with their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, and their cousins. People thought that family was much more important than friends.

Most boys and girls in China did not go to school, but worked on their parents' farms, picking weeds and planting seeds. Even rich girls did not go to school, but boys from rich families did. The boys worked very hard at school, because doing well on the state examinations was the only way to get political power.

When girls grew up, they got married and left the house they had grown up in to go live in their husband's house, with his family. This was often hard, because girls got married young, and when they went to live in their husband's house they had to do whatever his mother told them to do.

But the lives of slaves were the hardest of all. Many Chinese families had slaves to do some of the work for them, both in the fields and at home. The Emperor owned hundreds of slaves. Some people were born slaves, because their mothers were slaves, and other people were sold into slavery to pay debts.

Chinese Society

In a Chinese family the father had complete authority over his wife and children. A woman was ruled by her father, or by her husband or (if widowed) her son. Marriages were arranged by parents with the help of go-betweens and children had no say in the matter. However many wealthy men kept concubines.

Children were supposed to be obedient. In China male heirs were very important as they carried on the family. Girls were valued much less than boys and baby girls were often left outside to die or were drowned. In any case infant mortality was high. People would have many children but not all would live to adulthood.

Only boys went to school. There they learned the teachings of Confucius by heart. They also learned calligraphy. Of course, only a minority of boys went to school. Most did not. Instead they worked in the fields from an early age.

When they were 4 or 5 girls had their feet bound. Eventually the girl's feet became deformed so they had difficulty walking. However 'lily feet' were very attractive to men.

In China the upper class were officials called mandarins. To become a mandarin you had to pass certain exams. The exams were, in theory open to almost all men. However Chinese merchants were held in low esteem.

Women

The majority of women in ancient China lived oppressed lives. Even women of the nobility and the imperial family did not escape the oppression, though life was possibly slightly easier for them than for the large population of poor women. Women were considered inferior to men and from the moment of birth most women were treated as inferiors.

Family life

Women in ancient China were considered inferior to men. This meant that their whole lives were spent being subservient to the men in their families. Generations of one family often lived in the same house together and older people were greatly respected. A grandmother became important if she outlived her husband as she would then be the oldest member of the household and would be afforded the most respect. Confucius taught that women's roles were to look after the men in their families. He believed that it was not acceptable for a woman to have her own ambitions and that she should have barely any life outside her own home. He did, however, teach that a woman's role as mother and mother-in-law should be respected. He taught that a 'woman's greatest duty is to have a son'.

Marriage

Marriages were arranged in ancient China but they were also carefully considered. The parents of the children to be married consulted an astrologer who referred to the birth charts of each child. The astrologer would determine if, by the time and date of their births, the children were compatible. As a woman's thoughts and opinions were not considered important, the father's word was final on who his daughter would marry. The morning after the marriage, the girl would bow and offer tea to her in-laws as a sign that she now belonged to her husband's family. Once married, a girl would live with her husband's family. She would be required to obey all the members of his family, particularly his mother. A girl often became the servant of her mother-in-law and was forbidden to disobey her. A girl gained more respect in her husband's family if she gave birth to a boy. The birth of a boy was always celebrated more than the birth of a girl. If families were very poor, they would sell their daughters as servants to rich families. If a wife did not give birth to a son, her husband often took other wives.