31 pages • 1 hour read
The Death of Woman Wang
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Themes
The Experiences of Women
As the title The Death of Woman Wang suggests, the historical experience of women outside the upper class is a major part of the book. In 17th-century China, social norms made it easy for men to exploit women. For example, Spence cites a story by P’u about a peasant woman whose wealthy lover abandons her and her child without repercussions(107-09). Women didn’t enjoy the same leniency; society expected them to dedicate themselves entirely to their husbands, even to the point of dying by suicide. In writings portraying ideal women, women display
[…] chastity, courage, tenacity, and unquestioning acceptance of the prevailing hierarchy—unto death if necessary: fifteen of the listed women had committed suicide, and in thirteen of these suicides the motive was loyalty to a deceased husband or to avoid rape, which would shame both wife and husband (100).
As in the case of Wang, Chinese law and culture harshly punished female adultery. For example, Wang’s killer, her husband Jen, received a lighter sentence partially because she was guilty of adultery (138). Although stories like Wang’s and that of the woman seduced by a scholar demonstrate that women didn’t always adhere to the feminine ideal, there could be severe consequences for flouting it.
For many women, however, such ideals were materially unattainable. Biographies of virtuous widows carried the expectation that these widows would support themselves and raise their children well (59). In reality, widows were often harassed or pressured to remarry by their husband’s relatives so that they could receive the widow’s inheritance (70). Nor, as in the case of the widow P’eng, did widows receive much support from the law. Even though one of her deceased husband’s relations stole some of her property, the law couldn’t help her because he had fled to another province. Worse yet, even though another member of her husband’s family had killed her son Lien, she was still forced to make her husband’s family her heirs (76). Such stories suggest that the failures of weak or corrupt government hit women—who already suffered from limited legal rights and protections—especially hard.
The Limits of Government Support
The Death of Woman Wang depicts government in crisis both nationally and locally. In the mid-17th century, unrest at home and invasions by the northern Manchu people resulted in the downfall of the centuries-old Ming Dynasty, which the Manchus themselves would ultimately replace. This widespread conflict was especially devastating for T’an-ch’eng; impoverished and weakened by multiple natural disasters, T’an-ch’eng wasn’t equipped to deal with either war itself or its aftereffects, which included opportunistic warlords like the Wangs establishing themselves as regional powers. The local government was weak and often corrupt, allowing landlords to evade taxation and gangs to rule through fear and violence.
It is true that the magistrate Huang Liu-hang comes across as a sympathetic and active leader. He worked to bring in the corrupt landlord Liu T’ing-yüan (57-58), and he raised a militia to bring the Wang family to justice (92-98). However, in both cases, the offenders intimidated and abducted witnesses and accusers with relative impunity. In fact, Huang had to raise a citizen militia to bring the Wangs to justice (95-97). In his fiction, P’u “had little faith in local officials’ ability” to handle gangs of bandits (79). Instead, in one story, a community has to organize its own defense force to battle against a gang organized by a corrupt aristocrat (89).
The government could also do little to address the widespread issues of corruption and uneven taxation. For example, Huang wanted to ease taxes on rural populations and raise taxes on urban residents. However, Huang feared an urban revolt, and it was easier for the people of the city to influence officials than it was for rural citizenry (46). Also, landlords exploited the system and outright deceived the government in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes (47-48).
Magic and Superstition
Spence notes that morale was a constant problem in Liu T’ing-yüan, which was an impoverished county hit by famines and natural disasters. The people of T’an-ch’eng were “unusually superstitious” (15), believing in spirits, shamans, and mediums. P’u’s stories are filled with supernatural themes, with Spence describing one as “a story of fantasy, sensuality, and insecurity, and as such a fitting commentary on the place and time” (32). Many in T’an-ch’eng viewed the landlord-gangster Wang San as a “heavenly spirit” because of his boldness and defiance (97). Even the well-educated sometimes bowed to superstition: Concerns over Wang’s vengeful ghost led Huang to make sure she received a good burial near her home.
These superstitions partly reflected the misfortunes the region had suffered. Ranging from natural disasters to civil war, these disasters were well beyond the control of the mostly poor residents of T’an-ch’eng. For these people, belief in the supernatural offered a way to explain and perhaps even influence the cataclysmic events unfolding around them. A similar hope perhaps accounts for the frequent association of the supernatural with women. Although women like Wang had very little power in life, “dead and vengeful she was suffused with power and danger” (139). Likewise, women who practiced as mediums could wield a degree of influence they would otherwise not enjoy in a society that mostly expected women to contribute to society indirectly through their sons. Stories like that of the ghost who murdered his unfaithful wife counter this phenomenon, using the supernatural to reinforce the "proper” social hierarchy.
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