Maybe the role of women in the confucian tradition is less dominated by thoughts of 'emancipation' in the modern sense but has to be regarded as part of the great puzzle called 'cosmic harmony'  - the term of tao is not an invention of the 'Daozers' - books like the 'da xue' (great learning) or the xiao jing (classical of filial piety) stress the idea of a society hold together by mutual respect based in the core of the family,  and from there reaching upwards to the emperor.
 
Lun y| 12.5.4. reads: "Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety: -then all within the four seas will be his brothers." (tr. Legge).
 
Obediance to accepted rules can be an expression of a free will too, and if the role of the family is of that importance stressed by all confucian thinkers it is in some ways the mother, the elder sister, Auntie Ai-ping, whosoever that shapes the society by their conduct, too.
 
When Jesus C. spoke of the prodigal son, not daughter, it was not meant that women should be excluded from exculpation and release, he just took the more common picture. (A woman running away from her family, giving herself away to adultry and booze and after having her money spent returning to her mother who forgives her,  would have been more provocative but less probable 2000 years ago.)
 
As the imperial power has always been felt as something quite far and abstract ("Imperial power is? And to us what is it?" Canto XLIX) the role of women should be less regarded under aspects of democratic ideas of emancipation but under the aspects of a rural society, mainly devoted to fieldwork, the cult of ancestors and the important duty of educating the children. And here women are of the same importance as their husbands -remember: the Cosmos only depicts the harmonious life of the people's families and vice versa. The idea of a revolution is quite new one to chinese people: I think it was
Sun Yat-sen who found a new meaning for the old term ge-ming. Up to there history is regarded as recurring cycles, leaving now or very few ways of participation of the 'xiao ren', hoi polloi. But raising and teaching the children is one of them.
 
Martin Knepper
 
---
 
How to govern is from the time of Kuan Chang
        but the cup of white gold at Patara
                Helen's breast gave that.
 
Canto CVI
 
 
 
> The Lun-Yu supports the patriarchal structure of Confucianism. Further, it supports the autocratic and inflexible qualities of it that too often came to dominate Chinese life. Take, for example, the Confucian precept that to a emperor, his minister was always a minister, and yet to the minister's son, the minister was always father? This not only illustrates the overly rigid aspects of Confucian thought, it suggests the patriarchal structure that depended, perhaps above all else, on perpetuating a society structured around filial piety. Women are conspicuously absent from this social ordering.
>     If you have some part of the Lun yu that would suggest some other dimension on the patriarchal nature of Confucianism, point it out, and we can discuss it.
>
> 'Consider, Sir, answered Sancho, 'that those which appear yonder,
> are not giants, but windmills.'
> 'It is clear,' answered Don Quixote, 'that you are not versed in the business of adventures....'
>                                                      from Don Quixote, chapter 8
>
> Robert E. Kibler, PhD
> English and Humanities
> Valley City State University
> [log in to unmask]
>
> >>> Peter Bi <[log in to unmask]> 12/08 5:39 PM >>>
> Hi, Robert and others:
>
> why not have a look at what Confucius originally said and find it out by
> oneself ? An online English version of Lun-Yu, the most important essay by
> Confucius, can be found at http://www.confucius.org/english/lange.htm (for
> other languages, http://www.confucius.org/main01.htm )
>
> The book by Van Gulik is:
> Sexual Life in Ancient China : A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and
> Society from Ca. 1500 B.C. Till 1644 A.D by Robert Hans Van Gulik, ASIN:
> 9004102930
>
> One can find it and other Judge Dee books at Amazon.com.
>
> Peter Bi
> ------------------------------------
> Lun-Yu, Chapter 1, Verse 1:
> Confucius said, "To learn and to practice what is learned time and again is
> pleasure, is it not? To have friends come from afar is happiness, is it not?
> To be unperturbed when not appreciated by others is gentlemanly, is it not?"
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Robert Kibler <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 1999 7:04 AM
> Subject: Re: Getting things dead wrong
>
> Confucianism nevertheless was an almost exclusively patriarchal system of
> thought and social order, dependent on filial piety. And it was tyrranical.
> When the Chinese annexed Tibet in the 17th, the first necessary step towards
> assimilating the matriarchal Naxi tribe was to break the back of the
> matriarchy. Rock, Goullart, and others mention this, and so Pound knew this
> too. It may figure in both his changing attitute towards the female
> principle, and towards Confucianism, in the later Cantos.
>
> 'Consider, Sir, answered Sancho, 'that those which appear yonder,
> are not giants, but windmills.'
> 'It is clear,' answered Don Quixote, 'that you are not versed in the
> business of adventures....'
>                                                      from Don Quixote,
> chapter 8
>
> Robert E. Kibler, PhD
> English and Humanities
> Valley City State University
> [log in to unmask]
>
> >>> Peter Bi <[log in to unmask]> 12/07 11:45 PM >>>
> Lee:
>
> in your previous email you mentioned that someone said: "The fact that
> Confucianism is worthless is proved by the way the Chinese have treated
> women.".
> But I could not find the shit in all the posts I received. This is not a
> personal
> attack, it is even worse than that.
>
> I am a Chinese and my wife can surely tell that Chinese is as good as all
> other
> nations when treating their women. The continuation of the 5000 years of
> Chinese
> history is attributed partly to the harmony between the men and the women,
> and
> between the Confucianism and the Nature, of course.
>
> If anyone in the mailing list is interested in ancient Chinese sexual life,
> I
> would like to recommend a book written by a Holland scholar. Sorry, I can
> only
> recall that his last name starts with "van ..." --- I will be glad to call a
> friend to get the detail if anyone requests.
>
> Finally, I think we are still far away from making final call as which
> social
> system is the best or which economical model is the best. Whatever we are
> doing
> today will become history, definitely. So, in principle, it is nonsense in
> logic
> to use the current economical models or academic theories to disapprove
> Pound's
> (or any such) idea. The failure of the WTO meeting in Seattle is probably
> such a
> lession.
>
> I like your posts very much, especially, those toward "academic" :-). I was
> in
> the universities for about 20 years. I quitted it only recently.
>
> Peter Bi
> http://www.card4you.com
>
> Everett Lee Lady wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm very glad that you found Professor Morse's seminar valuable.  I know
> > that he took his teaching of it very seriously.  And undoubtedly I would
> > have learned some valuable things myself if I had sat in on it.
> >
> > I want to take the opportunity of acknowledging that in my initial
> > exchange of email with Professor Morse, at the time when I was
> > considering sitting in on his seminar, he frequently provided me with
> > very worthwhile information about Pound.  In particular, it was from
> > him that I first learned about the Agresti letters.
> >
> > I thoroughly immersed myself in Pound's works and thoughts forty years
> > ago, when I used to be a very frequent visitor to Pound at St.
> > Elizabeths.  But in the intervening years, until recently, I did not
> > try to keep au courant at all and studiously avoided reading Paideuma
> > and books on Pound.  Consequently there is a great deal I do not know.
> >
> > Although I can acknowledge that Professor Morse's expertise is in many
> > ways greater than my own, it still dismays me that he makes such facile
> > judgements and seems to have no interest in understanding Pound in
> > the context of his own time and his own world.  And it dismays me even
> > more that I cannot trust the information he gives, because he makes
> > statements as if giving objective factual reports but which in fact
> > represent his own "deep interpretations" of what, in his opinion, Pound
> > really meant between the lines.
> >
> > In a lot of ways, I agree with many of Professor Morse's judgements.  I
> > do not think that the ideas on economics Pound championed have proved to
> > have value, and in fact I don't think anyone today would have any
> > interest in them except for their connection with a famous poet.
> >
> > As to the writings of Confucius, they apparently also have only minor
> > value for those of us in today's world.  (I have to admit that I don't
> > feel very sure of myself on this issue, since it's been a long time since
> > I looked at them.)  But I don't think that one can reject the works of
> > Confucius simply because of the way the Mandarin civil service system
> > functioned in China or the way women have been treated in China any
> > more than one get reject the Bible merely because of the Inquisition.
> >
> > Ideas should be examined on their merits, not merely on the basis of the
> > way particular people have implemented them.
> >
> > In any case, it dismays me that someone seriously investigating Pound's
> > biography would not familiarize himself with the books that Pound
> > considered so overwhelmingly important and would not look at the ideas
> > Pound promoted in the usual serious manner by which most ideas are
> > studied.
> >
> > I think that the Agresti letters are like a valuable archeological site
> > from which one can learn a great deal about what things Pound considered
> > important.  In these letters, I recognize very well the Pound I knew at
> > St. Elizabeths.  Those who read the Agresti letters looking only for the
> > anti-semitic references are, in my opinion, just as foolish as those
> > who attempt to sweep the anti-semitic references under the rug.
> >
> > Finally, I want to acknowledge here that I am very prejudiced, inasmuch
> > as I very much dislike academics.  I have spent a great deal of my life
> > being an academic myself, and to some extent I am still one (or at
> > least get paid for being one), and I don't like that part of myself.  I
> > don't like the fact that I spent so much of my life devoting my mind,
> > and in fact devoting my life as a whole, to pursuits that I believe
> > have very little value to the world.
> >
> > But, as someone has reminded us, the issue is Pound, not myself and not
> > any other contributor to the mailing list.