Women in Ancient China.

• Author: Milburn, Olivla
• Position: Women in Early Medieval China - Book review

Women in Ancient China. By BRET HINSCH. Lanham, MD: ROWMAN AND LITTLEFIELD, 2018. Pp. xiv + 209. $79.

Women in Early Medieval China. By BRET HINSCH. Lanham, MD: ROWMAN AND LITTLEFIELD, 2019. Pp. xx+ 211. $85.

In recent years, a number of scholars have produced significant studies of the role of women over the course of Chinese history. By far the most comprehensive in terms of coverage and scope is the ten-volume series Zhongguo funu tongshi [phrase omitted] (History of Women in China; 2010), but there have also been important English-language monographs that attempt a longue duree analysis, such as Keith McMahon's study of empresses and palace women, Women Shall Not Rule: Imperial Wives and Concubines from Han to Liao (2013), as well as his Celestial Women: Imperial Wives and Concubines from Song to Qing (2016). With Women in Ancient China, a companion and prequel to his earlier study, Women in Early Imperial China (2002), Bret Hinsch undertakes the almost impossible task of summarizing for the general reader what is known about the condition of Chinese women from Neolithic times to the unification of China in 221 BCE.

Women in Ancient China opens with an account of the problems caused in Chinese academic circles by the state-supported doctrine that there was a "matriarchal" phase in the development of Chinese society, thus providing a useful introduction to the development of this theory and its ongoing influence. This is followed by four chapters describing the role of women in Neolithic societies, and in the Shang (ca. 1600-1046 BCE), the Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE), and the Eastern Zhou (771-221 BCE) dynasties. Covering such a vast period of time and such a huge geographical area in a couple of hundred pages poses exceptional challenges, some of which the author has explicitly recognized, and others that are not mentioned. One term, which it might be thought crucial to define, is "China." This volume deals with women in ancient China before China existed, and although the cultures in which they lived certainly existed geographically within the borders of what is now the People's Republic of China, that does not necessarily mean that they made any cultural contribution to later civilizations in the same region. This issue is raised by the author in one paragraph in the introduction, but that really does not go far enough. To take but one example, Liangzhu Culture (here dated to 3400-2500 BCE) represents a highly sophisticated civilization whose jade artworks have long been appreciated, but whose astonishing architectural achievements are only recently starting to be understood. The key sites associated with this culture, in and around Liangzhu in Zhejiang province, were...