REREADING TERMS OF ART

Li Zhi begins one of his most widely read pieces on the subject of women, titled “A Letter in Response to the Claim That Women Are Too Shortsighted to Understand the Dao,” with an affirming declaration to his correspondent: “Yesterday I had the opportunity to hear your esteemed teaching wherein you proclaimed that women, being shortsighted [duanjian], are incapable of understanding the Dao. Indeed this is so! Indeed this is so!”⁵ At the outset, there is no indication of what “shortsightedness” refers to, whether Li is speaking of spiritual, intellectual, or another form of shortsightedness. We simply know that he appears to stand with his interlocutor: women are indeed incapable of understanding the Dao. However, further explanation immediately follows. Li asserts, “Women live within the inner chambers while men wander throughout the world.”⁶ With this artfully chosen line from The Book of Rites (Liji), Li writes and reads women into the literary tradition in two ways. First, he reinterprets a classical text to support the empirical claim that women are shortsighted but explains this as a result of contingent social circumstances. Second, he explicitly denies that this “shortsightedness” refers to any inherent, essential spiritual or intellectual deficiency in women. Again and again, Li skillfully works within his tradition and language to challenge existing notions of women’s place in the social world and the reasons given for keeping women within one space or out of another. Women indeed are “shortsighted,” he writes, but only because they have been prevented from developing their native capacities.

As students of late imperial China know, during the Ming and Qing periods, women, or at least elite women, were often confined to the “inner chambers” of a household, where their social interactions were generally limited to other women, children, servants, and close male relatives.⁷ Li laments this practice, insisting that physical confinement unjustly stunts the development of women, who in fact possess capacities for reading, writing, governing, and spiritual attainment identical to those of men. Writing about “a person with a woman’s body and a ‘man’s’ vision,” he states: “It may have been in hopes of encountering such a person that the Sage Confucius wandered the world, desiring to meet her just once but unable to find her; and for such a person to be dismissed as a ‘shortsighted creature,’ isn’t this unjust?”⁸

Li agrees that short- and farsightedness exist, but he denies that the first is in any way essentially associated with women and the latter with men. Instead he writes, “I humbly propose that those who desire to discourse on short- and farsightedness should do as I have done. One must not stop,” as his unidentified interlocutor presumably does, “at the observation that women are shortsighted.” He continues, “To say that shortsightedness and farsightedness exist is acceptable. But to say that a man’s vision is entirely farsighted [yuanjian] and a woman’s is wholly shortsighted, once again, how can that be acceptable?”⁹ Li agrees that women all too often are limited in their insights, but he insists that they are so simply and lamentably because they are physically confined within the four walls of the domestic chambers.¹⁰

WRITING AND READING WOMEN INTO THE COMMENTARIAL TRADITION

In “A Letter in Response to the Claim That Women Are Too Shortsighted,” Li employs additional techniques to argue for and expand the space for women’s self-expression. Toward the beginning of the letter, he refers the reader to a number of historical women who achieved excellence and attained fame for their work as writers, rulers, and spiritual savants: “From our present perspective we can observe the following: Yi Jiang, a woman, ‘filled in the ranks,’ being the ninth of King Wu’s ministers. Nothing hindered her from counting as one of the ‘ten able ministers’ alongside Zhou, Shao, and Taigong. Mother Wen, a sagely woman, rectified the customs of the southern regions. Nothing prevented her from being praised along with San Yisheng and Tai Dian as one of the ‘four friends’ who helped King Wu in his difficulties.”¹¹ Here, Li reflects on women throughout history and simply and powerfully points out that while for the most part women may be excluded from participating in spheres such as government or writing, there are nonetheless clear examples of women every bit as accomplished in arts conventionally reserved for men. If, as a Ming scholar would do, we look more closely and consider the earliest sources for these references to the “ten able ministers” or the “four friends” and how the commentarial tradition through the centuries interpreted and reinterpreted these allusions, we find Li Zhi doing even more.

The Book of Documents (Shujing) records that King Wu, founder of the Zhou dynasty, believed he could triumph over his enemy. Although the tyrant Shou had “hundreds and thousands of men,” they were divided against each other. In contrast, King Wu had only “ten ministers capable of bringing order.” However small in number, they were more powerful for being united in heart and spirit. While later commentators have suggested that the ten included Wu’s nine brothers and either his consort (Yi Jiang) or his mother (Wen Mu),¹² The Book of Documents mentions no woman among these ten.¹³

In Confucius’s Analects, once again we find reference to King Wu’s ten ministers and, here, explicit reference to a woman. Analects 8.20 states:

Shun had five ministers, and the empire was well governed. King Wu said, I have ten capable ministers.

Confucius said, Talent is hard to find—true, is it not? In the time of Yao and Shun, talent flourished, [yet Shun had only five ministers. As for King Wu’s ten ministers,] among the ten was a woman, so he had nine and that was all.¹⁴

For whatever reason, Confucius excludes the one woman from the “ten able ministers”; perhaps women were not allowed to serve in the public role of minister, or it was believed that women lacked the abilities to serve as ministers. Thus, the view is attributed to Confucius that King Wu in fact had no more than nine capable ministers.

In one of the most widely read and respected commentaries on the Analects, the Collected Commentaries on the Analects by Mr. He and Others (Lunyu Heshideng jijie)—a Wei-period work attributed to and compiled by He Yan (d. 249 CE)—He Yan cites the Han-period scholar Kong Anguo (d. ca. 100 CE) commenting that during the rule of Yao and Shun all was complete for the reason that there was ample talent. Kong restates what we find in the Analects, “Still, amongst the ten there was one woman. And so there were really only nine.”¹⁵

Of particular interest to our argument, the great Confucian Zhu Xi (1130–1200), in his widely read commentary on the Analects—also one Li Zhi surely knew—provides an explanation that places Yi Jiang in a different but arguably equally significant sphere of influence as the nine men: “Nine people governed the ‘public’ or ‘outer’ sphere; Yi Jiang governed the ‘inner.’ ” With all ten ministers, the public and domestic spheres both were ably governed. Unlike in the He commentary, Zhu Xi does not address Confucius’s seeming exclusion of the one woman as a minister; instead, he simply notes that talent is hard to find: “Still, [King Wu] only had such a number [nine plus one] of people and no more. Talent is indeed difficult to find.”¹⁶

In Li Zhi’s own commentary on Analects 8.20 he says nothing about women.¹⁷ But in “A Letter in Response to the Claim That Women Are Too Shortsighted,” he affirms, following Zhu Xi, that King Wu’s consort Yi Jiang was the tenth minister and indeed served effectively. Unlike Zhu, however, Li excludes the explanation that Yi Jiang governed in a separate sphere. He insists that she was absolutely capable and no different from the nine men. And so there were ten able ministers: “Yi Jiang, a woman, ‘filled in the ranks’ alongside King Wu’s nine ministers. Nothing hindered her from counting as one of the ‘ten able ministers’ alongside Zhou, Shao, and Taigong.”

Extracted from the context of the canonical and the commentarial tradition—Li Zhi’s “horizon of significance”¹⁸—his assertion that a king’s consort was a capable minister can be seen as expanding women’s roles into the outer or public sphere of government. Against the larger literary context, his writing on Yi Jiang is even more noteworthy. Moving through the canon and commentarial tradition, we first read King Wu’s ten ministers as all male (The Book of Documents); in the Analects, a woman is included but not considered truly a minister; with Zhu Xi, the woman minister is celebrated as different but equal; and with Li Zhi, Yi Jiang is named and described as no different from the other nine capable male ministers.

Returning to the text of our letter of interest, we find Li citing yet other historical (and, later in the letter, contemporary) examples of women who are just as competent as the most accomplished men in regard to their intellectual and spiritual capacities.¹⁹ He writes, “Mother Wen, a sagely woman, rectified the customs of the southern regions. Nothing prevented her from being praised along with San Yisheng and Tai Dian as one of the ‘four friends’ who helped King Wu in his difficulties.”²⁰ The locus classicus for the reference to the “four friends,” whom Li Zhi claims include Mother Wen, is The Book of Documents, where we find reference to four loyal ministers, all men (Taigong, Nangong Shi, San Yisheng, and Hong Yao), originally serving King Wen and later his son King Wu. King Wu’s mother, Mother Wen, is not listed among these four. Through consistent, nuanced misreading or misremembering—repeatedly telling the story ever so slightly differently from what is found in the classics—whatever Li Zhi’s intentions, the effect is of amending his written world in a way that multiplies the roles available to women.

Throughout Li’s writings he argues for and opens up space for women to express their distinctive selves by reworking words, retrieving stories from the classics, extending the commentarial tradition, reinterpreting or misreading classical texts, and more.²¹ If we turn to Li Zhi’s A Book to Keep (Hidden), we can find examples where he skillfully extends the commentarial tradition on biographies from the great Han period historian Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji). Sima Qian’s lengthy biography of the poet Sima Xiangru (ca. 179–17 BCE) narrates his rise from obscurity to fame.²² Within this piece are a few short paragraphs on his elopement with the young widow Zhuo Wenjun and her father’s dismay at the news: “Zhuo Wenjun’s father, Zhuo Wangsun, was in a rage. ‘What a piece of trash—this daughter of mine!’ he exclaimed. ‘I have not the heart to kill her outright, but I will see to it that she never gets a penny of my money!’ ”²³ Later, when Sima Xiangru attains great fame, Zhuo Wangsun pays respect to and acknowledges Sima Xiangru as his son-in-law. Sima Qian writes, “When Sima Xiangru returned as a person of great honor … Xiangru’s father-in-law, Zhuo Wangsun, as well as the various distinguished men of Linqiong, flocked to his gate with presents of meat and wine to express their warmhearted friendship. Zhuo Wangsun was filled with remorse that he had been so late in recognizing his daughter’s marriage to Xiangru, and to make up for it he presented her with a generous portion of his estate, so that her inheritance equaled that of her brother.”²⁴

Li Zhi quotes Sima Qian’s brief remarks on Zhuo Wenjun and extends Sima Qian’s original biography in a way that celebrates Zhuo Wenjun’s independence and defiance of conventions. He praises her ability to recognize the virtues of Sima Xiangru, a man who would eventually become one of the great poets of his time. Sima Qian notes that Zhuo Wangsun was initially “filled with shame” at the thought of his daughter with Sima Xiangru. Li balks at such condemnation and retorts, “In this world today those who know of Zhuo Wangsun’s daughter, Zhuo Wenjun, appropriately see her to be a great joy for him. Why was he ashamed?” While in Sima Qian’s narrative Zhuo Wangsun’s friends all agreed “Wenjun … lost herself in eloping with Sima Xiangru,” Li takes exception to such a judgment and counters, “She properly saved herself; she did not lose herself.”²⁵

Li Zhi’s defense of Zhuo Wenjun contrasts sharply with positions toward widow remarriage put forth by many literati in his time. For example, the sixteenth-century literary critic Hu Yinglin (1551–1602) sums up well the prevailing moral condemnation of widow remarriage when he chastises Zhuo Wenjun: “Wenjun was a remarried widow … and Empress Zhen was not loyal to her first husband. Neither of these two women is worthy of emulation when it comes to the great norms of human behavior. But the historians tell us that Xu Shu did not remarry after [Qin] Jia’s death and even disfigured her face to discourage potential suitors.”²⁶ Hu considers the chaste widow Xu Shu a paragon of virtue, while he regards Empress Zhen and Li Zhi’s heroine Zhuo Wenjun poetically gifted but morally weak.

The celebration of widow chastity can be traced in the Confucian tradition. Within the Chinese literary tradition oft-cited is the great neo-Confucian Zhu Xi’s assertion: “Woman is born to serve others with her person; a wife should serve her husband and die together with him.”²⁷ The influential neo-Confucian Cheng Yi (1033–1107) is famous for saying that it is a small matter for a widow and her children to die by starvation or exposure if she remains unwed and thus loyal to her deceased husband, but a calamity for her to lose her integrity by remarrying. Within the late-Ming cultural context, where marriages of literary giftedness were celebrated, whatever Li Zhi’s intentions, the effect of including and embellishing upon the lives of Zhuo Wenjun and Sima Xiangru would be to affirm the practice of widow remarriage.

In a poem titled “Mourning the Precious Son” dated 1588 and written in Macheng, Li reaffirms his view of remarriage. The poem is addressed to the ghost of his deceased son, possibly born to Li Zhi’s younger brother and subsequently adopted by Li so that he might have an heir.²⁸ Here Li brings his theoretical ideas to bear on his own personal life by advising that his bereaved daughter-in-law ought to have the opportunity to remarry. He writes:

Your wife should remarry.

Your son, he is my grandchild.

Where has your spirit settled?

Find refuge in the honorable world of the Buddha.²⁹

While one might read Li Zhi as encouraging his daughter-in-law to remarry because, due to his own straitened financial circumstances, he would find it difficult to care for her, the combination of this poem and his commentary on Zhuo Wenjun suggest a consistent commitment to the support of widow remarriage. Following the line “Your wife should remarry” Li adds that his deceased son should “find refuge in the honorable world of the Buddha,” presumably rather than comfort in the fact that his wife would remain unmarried, thus loyal, after his death.³⁰

NATIVE SEEDS OF CHANGE

In a letter to his student Wang Benke dated 1594, Li discusses writing strategies: “When ordinary people write, they begin from the outside and fight their way in; when I write, I start from the middle and fight my way out. I go straight for the enemy’s defenses and moat, eat his grain, and command his troops; then, when I level my attack, I leave him utterly shattered. In this way I do not expend so much as a whit of my own energy and naturally have powers to spare.”³¹ With a quote from The Book of Rites,³² reference to the legendary King Wu and his ten ministers,³³ allusion to the great historian Sima Qian’s commentary on the widow Zhuo Wenjun, and more, Li Zhi situates himself at the heart of the literary canon. His acts of dissent work from within the Ru tradition, the world of writing and culture (wen), where effective strategies for social change include attending to words, characters, classical references, commentaries, genre, and canon. As we have seen, women too are part of Li’s world and he holds that each woman ought to have greater opportunities for self-expression. Even Li, widely known as an iconoclast in Chinese cultural history, took the Confucian tradition absolutely seriously.

Writing about the late-Qing period, the authors of The Birth of Chinese Feminism persuasively argue against what they refer to as “the conventional view of the birth of Chinese feminism [as] a by-product of the introduction of liberalism.”³⁴ One primary task in their book is to move beyond “the Western or male problem of origins” for Chinese feminisms by bringing to light the writings of the female Chinese feminist He-Yin Zhen (1884–ca. 1920).³⁵ Elegant and powerful, this work emphasizes global discourse rather than unidirectional influence. As the authors summarize their project, “He-Yin Zhen’s feminist and anarchist radicalism allows us to complicate today’s received narrative about the origins of Chinese feminism in a borrowed male liberal worldview.”³⁶ A study of Li Zhi and his views on women aligns with such an aim, allowing us to complicate the inaccurate received narrative that Chinese feminism finds its origins in a borrowed liberal worldview. The Birth of Chinese Feminism further describes He-Yin Zhen as “debunking … the millennia-long classical textual scholarship and Confucian commentarial traditions” and engaging in a “totalistic rejection” of Confucianism.³⁷ But is He-Yin in her writings wholly rejecting Confucianism? Or is she more like Li Zhi, who, I have argued, works cleverly with erudition within the millennia-long classical textual scholarship and Confucian commentarial tradition and stands in the middle and fights his way out?

While Li’s strategy for bringing women into the world of men may seem unimaginative or limited, his writings reveal one example of a distinctive and valuable approach to social change rich with possibility. Rather than focusing on legal change, the ideals of autonomy and rights, the world of employment, or issues of private and public, he insists on the power of tradition forged through the acts of writing and reading.³⁸ We may wish that he had been able to consider difference rather than simply sameness between men and women.³⁹ Or we may want to move beyond his suggestions that for women to flourish they must be granted more opportunities for self-cultivation; instead, the structure of society must be changed, for example, so that women can truly move beyond the “inner chambers” and attain “farsightedness”—as men do.⁴⁰ I have argued that as early as the late Ming, one may already perceive a glimmer of the sorts of “native” or “indigenous” feminisms that would flourish in the late Qing. Further study of thinkers in early modern China may strengthen the view that Li’s thought contributed to creating a nuanced, complex, and powerful discourse on gender relations and that in his writings we find native seeds of change.⁴¹

NOTES

I am grateful to Robert Hegel, Eric Hutton, Philip Ivanhoe, Haun Saussy, Ying Zhang, Brook Ziporyn, and especially Rivi Handler-Spitz for invaluable comments on this chapter.

1.   1    Li Zhi, “ ‘Dushule’ bing yin,” in LZ 2:240–43; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 211–14.

2.   2    For instance, in chapter 2 Maram Epstein analyzes Li Zhi’s response to his daughters’ deaths.

3.   3    Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 211.

4.   4    Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 214.

5.   5    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 27–33.

6.   6    See “The Pattern of the Family,” in Legge, Li Chi, 471.

7.   7    For discussion on women’s social space in late imperial China, see Mann, Precious Records.

8.   8    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 27–33.

9.   9    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 29–33. Of interest, He-Yin Zhen (1884–1920?) in her essay “On the Question of Women’s Liberation” (Nüzi jiefang wenti) makes reference to Zhuo Wenjun and Cui Yingying and argues that cloistering women within the “inner chambers” in fact (for different reasons than Li Zhi argues) cripples women’s virtue. See Liu, Karl, and Ko, The Birth of Chinese Feminism, 57.

10. 10    For a discussion of how Li Zhi frames the term “orphaned” (gu), in his time most typically used to refer to a child who had lost his or her father even if the mother was still alive, see Pauline Lee, Li Zhi, 35–36. He uses the term to refer to himself when his birth mother died, even though his father at that time was still living. See also chapter 2.

11. 11    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 29–33.

12. 12    For a list of the names of the ten ministers, see LZ 1:146n14. In the scholarly literature, there are suggestions that preceding the Sui period, commentators generally considered King Wu’s mother to be the tenth minister; following the Sui, his consort Yi Jiang was considered the tenth.

13. 13    Legge, The Shoo King, 292.

14. 14    Watson, The Analects, 56–57, amended.

15. 15    He Yan et al, Lunyu Heshideng jijie, 6b.

16. 16    Zhu Xi, Sishu zhangju, 58.

17. 17    Li Zhi, “Taibo diba,” Sishu ping, in LZ 21:141.

18. 18    See Taylor, Ethics.

19. 19    Throughout the first chapter of Li’s Upon Arrival at the Lake (Chutanji), he praises virtuous and courageous women as “real men” or “better than men.” For analysis of this locution, see chapter 6.

20. 20    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 29–33.

21. 21    For discussion of Li Zhi’s strategies for reworking Buddhist texts and practices, see chapter 9.

22. 22    See Sima, Shiji 117; Watson, Records, 297–342.

23. 23    Watson, Records, 299.

24. 24    Watson, Records, 325.

25. 25    Li Zhi, “Sima Xiangru,” Cangshu, in LZ 7:147–53; translated in Pauline Lee, “Li Zhi (1527–1602),” 247–51.

26. 26    Idema and Grant, The Red Brush, 135, 85–91. Empress Zhen (183–221) was an accomplished poet first married to a son of one of the powerful rivals of the great warlord Cao Cao. After Cao Cao’s military defeat of this rival, she was married off to his son Cao Pi (187–226). Xu Shu (b. middle of the second century CE), known as both a virtuous woman and a gifted writer, was well-matched in a marriage to Qin Jia. When Qin Jia died, her brothers pressured her to remarry, whereupon she mutilated her face and vowed her loyalty to her deceased husband.

27. 27    See Zhu Xi, Shiji zhuan, 3:29; Raphals, Sharing the Light, 68, adapted. For further discussion of this text see Raphals, 205.

28. 28    Of his seven children, all but his eldest daughter died in childhood. For further discussion on the adult son in this poem, see LZ 3:340n1.

29. 29    See Li Zhi, “Ku gui’er,” in LZ 3:340; translated in Pauline Lee, “Li Zhi (1527–1602),” 226.

30. 30    See, for example, Yang Jisheng’s insistence that upon his death, his childless concubine ought to be urged to remarry rather than remain a widow, discussed in Bossler, “Final Instructions,” 123. Also see Ropp, “The Seeds of Change,” 9–10, for reference to Gui Youguang (1506–1571) and Lü Kun (1536–1618), both of whom supported widow remarriage.

31. 31    Li Zhi, “Yu youren lun wen,” in LZ 3:21; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 245–46.

32. 32    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 29–33.

33. 33    Li Zhi, “Da yi nüren xue dao wei jianduan shu,” in LZ 1:143–47; Li Zhi, A Book to Burn, 29–33.

34. 34    Liu, Karl, and Ko, The Birth of Chinese Feminism, 36.

35. 35    Liu, Karl, and Ko, The Birth of Chinese Feminism, 38.

36. 36    Liu, Karl, and Ko, The Birth of Chinese Feminism, 47.

37. 37    Liu, Karl, and Ko, The Birth of Chinese Feminism, 20, 36.

38. 38    For arguments against labeling Li Zhi an “individualist” and discussion of his relationship to late-Ming Confucian, literati, and mercantile culture, see chapters 2 and 8.

39. 39    See MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory, 215–34. Also see MacKinnon, “A Substantive Equality.”

40. 40    See Tong, Feminist Thought, 94–129. Also see the work of Kang Youwei (1858–1927), Mao Zedong (1893–1976), and He-Yin Zhen. For Kang’s work on this subject, see Book of Great Unity (Datong shu).

41. 41    See Ropp, “The Seeds of Change.”