Anonymous wrote:How important was it for a woman to be a virgin when she married back then? Virginity probably would have been a highly desired virtue of women back then, but many influential men who could get a virgin wife quite easily (ie Cao Cao, Cao Pi) had non virgin wives (Lady Bian was supposedly a hooker, Lady Zhen was previously married).
CaTigeReptile wrote:There’s no reason for Anon to make the assumption they have, China was not a Christian nation. Sex and virginity weren’t quite as linked to female purity and worth. A woman or concubine should always be solely faithful to her husband or master, of course, so it’s still hypocritical and misogynistic, but no, virginity was not a factor in decision making quite like it was/is in Western, especially Christian/post-Christian, societies. As long as she could make you some sons, it didn’t matter.
Sex in China was way different. It wasn’t viewed as sinful or immoral, so women weren’t devalued like used cars or something like they were in the west. I’ve got a translation of like a Han Dynasty pamphlet on sex it’s pretty great I bet it’s available online
Compare this to a conversation that was had in the 3K Question thread about three years ago:
TigerTally wrote:I would say that is exactly because bastards were often looked down upon. The Han laws apply severe punishment on adultery. Either being or having an illegitimate son would disgrace one and his family. As a result the authors of the biographies would tend to cover for them, leaving us no explicit record about bastardy.
There seem to be some discrepancies here and I just wondered if anyone might be able to explain them for me?
CaTiRe said that as long as a woman could produce sons it didn't matter if they were virgins or not. So are we saying it would have been acceptable for an unmarried girl from a upper class family to have a dalliance with a lad before marriage? That doesn't appear to fit with what TigerTally said about bastards? Nor does it fit with my knowledge of the Xiahou Ji situation where I believe Liu Bei forced Zhang Fei to marry the young Lady Xiahou after he got her pregnant? Setting aside the awful truth that Zhang Fei raped the poor girl, my understanding was that Liu Bei forced him to marry her because she was pregnant?
Alternatively are we saying that it was virginity that wasn't valued so highly? Therefore people didn't care about remarriage after the first spouse had died, I'm thinking of Cao Pi and Lady Zhen as an example here.
My last thought is that perhaps there was a difference in views on this between Confucianism and Daoism as TigerTally is referencing the first and CaTiRe the second?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts anyone shares.
I'm probably also going to provoke a completely unrelated debate (that if anyone wants to continue we should probably take it to another thread) but... it's not an orthodox christian view to see sex as inherently sinful. Instead I believe it is a wonderful gift from God but only when it's explored within its intended context - marriage. Anyone who thinks the Bible frowns upon sex in general hasn't read Songs of Solomon.