Women of Later Han: Ideals and Reality*

Though Confucian teachings might require them to subjugate themselves to the interests of their husband and his family, women of the Han period had a degree of personal autonomy, with rights to property, divorce and remarriage, and some capacity for independent action. At the head of the state, moreover, an empress dowager held regency power during an imperial minority. Despite their formal freedoms, however, in practice most women found their fate and fortune subordinated to the interests of men; and while all people were under constant threat of disease and death, a woman faced particular danger in time of childbirth. Based on accounts from the Hou Hanshu of Fan Ye and other sources, the present study considers some aspects of this situation.