Survival Definition of Terms

system how they live. There are so many concepts in the doctrine of Confucianism. However, the obvious and main concept that applies in Chinese society is the concept of Li the rules of propriety. Fan Hong explains that Using the rules of propriety as a means of social control to contain and yet provide satisfaction for human desires, the Confucian institution of Li has left very distinctive marks on Chinese culture and mentality. It succeeded in enclosing the personality of the individual within the parameters of his or her prescribed roles, to the extent that individuality was hardly differentiated from those roles. For this reason, in a traditional Confucian society, all interpersonal relationships were held together by a hierarchy of social roles. Each role functioned in the manner prescribed in the Confucian texts. 1997: 5 Because of the creation of a hierarchy of social roles, based on Confucianism men are clearly in superior position. It can be clearly seen in a family. Within a household unit or clan organization, men held authority and decision-making power; women were subordinate to men. In such a system, the man had authority over all members of the family, including his wife and concubines, his sons and grandsons, their wives and children, his unmarried daughters, and his collateral relatives who were junior to him. The man controlled the family finances and made the final decisions about family affairs. Tsai in Leng, 1989: 227-228 The quotation above describes the power of male dominance in Chinese family. Father or husband not only has a powerful authority over his wife and his children but also to all his family’s members. All family members have to obey every decision the father or the husband makes. Because of this patriarchal system, women have to live in difficulty. “Women have to respect their husbands, fathers, older brothers, and other related senior males; if they do not, they will find themselves becoming social outcasts” Hsu, 1971: 209. Confucianism doctrine is adopted by Chinese society to confine the movement of women. Chinese culture creates an efficient way to force women stay at home by footbinding. Footbinding was one of men’s conspiracies to keep women home as slaves physically and mentally, to turn them into sheer objects of men’s lust and perversity. Fangqin in Ping, 2000: 43 To achieve the goal of making women stay at home, Chinese culture creates the standard of beauty for women. In order to have women completely in its control and its disposal, the Confucian-dominated society also invented and forced upon women an odd and appalling concept of feminine physical beauty – the small, bound foot. It became the symbol of women’s subservience. Hong, 1997: 22 Footbinding is not only the measurement for the beauty but also as the symbol of social status. No one ever knows who the first person to do the practice of footbinding. However, most research says that footbinding began spread and popular to all over China by the Ming dynasty 1368-1644. Footbinding was once widely accepted as feminine beauty by society as explained by Wang Ping, For upper-class women, footbinding was the marker of their hierarchy. For girls from the lower class, footbinding gave them an opportunity to move upward in the marriage and service market. Ping, 2000: 32