We ended last week with a full immersion in literature produces during the Warring States period, this era for which we have more literary records to display the diversity of ideas and opinions on many subjects: political strategies, medicine, philosophical thinking, moral and ethical behavior.

This week, we jump to reading about food and wine in Tang and Song dynasty writings. So, fast forward 700 years or so, during which the Central Plain becomes unified by Ying Zheng 嬴政, who proclaims himself First Emperor of Qin, 秦始皇. The Qin dynasty is short lived, but it sets in place many features that will remain part of the functioning of next dynasties, in particular the Western Han dynasty 西漢朝 (202 BCE – 9 CE) and the Easter Han dynasty 東漢朝 (25 – 220 CE). The few years in between the Han dynasties saw the rise and quick demise of the Xin dynasty 新潮 (9 – 25 CE). 

What happens in between the end of the Eastern Han dynasty and the beginning of the Tang dynasty? The area once all under the control of the Han dynasties becomes fragmented and occupied by several states. This is known as the “Regional Regime” phase^[1] (CHIC chapter 4), with different states competing for supremacy and presenting themselves as the legitimate dynasty that should rule over the entire territory, in ways not dissimilar to the Warring States era.

A major dynasty of the time if the Easter Jin dynasty 東晉朝, which unified the regions along the Yellow River for circa 100 years (317 – 420 CE), with capital in Kaifeng. A second major actor is the Northern Zhou dynasty 北周 (557-581), which stretched vertically from today’s western regions in Inner Mongolia to Kunming. The founder of the Sui dynasty, the first dynasty able to de facto reunite the Central Plain was a general of the Northern Zhou dynasty, Yang Jian 楊堅.

The presence of several states led to the coexistence of several habits and traditions. A tradition related to food that became more predominant during the Regional Regimes phase is the role elite women played in hierarchical relationships. The presence of wives and concubines at banquets, always dictated by the husband and never a choice of the women involved, becomes more and more a subject of debate during the fourth and fifth centuries, and was recently object of a thorough study.^[2]

Women and Political Power in Medieval China

Starting with the third century, several records narrate occasions where the head of the household would host another important men. In many of them, references are made to the presence of the household’s wife and concubines, and the role these played in facilitating the relationship between the two elite men.

This was a challenge to the general idea that women and men should not mingle in each other’s affairs. This rule is at time taken as an indication that Confucianism, which since the Han dynasties becomes one of the foundational aspects of Chinese culture, was a sexist way of thinking. While to some extent true, it is important to remember that a separation between men and women was true of most cultures, and we cannot apply present day’s concerns to what happened centuries ago. Furthermore, there are many voices that belong to the wide umbrella of Confucianism, and at the same time we have writings who support a separation between male and female spheres by scholars who do not identify as Confucian.

Still, it is a fact that many passages used to argue for a separation between men and women are from texts traditionally labeled as Confucian. For example, passages in the collection Ritual Records 禮記 states that men and women have different duties towards their parents and their in-laws. A division between “inner” 內 and “outer” 外 spheres of lives, and the prohibition for women to meddles with what goes on in the outer ones, was one of the basis for social behavior since the Han dynasties. This does not mean that it was blindly follow, or that women and men did not leverage this rule to their advantage.

One of the ways in which men took advantage of this rule was by breaking it during feasting occasions. Precisely because only the household was allowed to deal directly and see his wide and his concubines, his decision to allow them to participate to banquets and let men from outside the family interact with them signaled a strong bond between the two male characters.^[3]

Consider the following narrative, from Sima Guang’s 司馬光 (1019-1086) Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government 資治通鑑 ( Zīzhì tōngjiàn). Sima Guang writes during the Song dynasty about Sun Ce 孫策 (175 – 200), a general born at the very end of the Eastern Han dynasty and later founder of the Eastern Wu 吳 kingdom, in today’s south-east China. One of Sun Ce’s political adversaries, Wang Sheng 王晟, was capirited by Sun. Wang’s life was spared by Sun Ce’s mother, who told his son: