Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (review)

Reviews 73 -tì# o mzmm ° *öhk ° oje&eiji ° aaiÄiiRKift ° wm%mx MZ ° "Two Bends" is the sobriquet of [Li] Yong. A bend in rivers is called a zhou, and a bend in mountains is called a zhi, and zhouzhi means the undulations of mountains and waters. Thus he called himselfthis after his native land.5 Li Yong's native place was Zhouzhi MM district in Shaanxi, now written JHM. Richard John Lynn University ofAlberta Richard John Lynn is Professor ofChinese Studies and Chair, Department ofEast Asian Studies. NOTES1. A few more facts are available in "Li Yung" by Dean R. Wickes, in Eminent Chinese ofthe Ch'ing Period (1644-1912), ed. Arthur W. Hummel (Washington, D. C: United States Government Printing Office, 1943; reprint, Taipei: Ch'eng Wen, 1967), pp. 498-499. See also Li's biography in the first section of "Confucian Scholars" (]ulin fB#), Qingshi gao :MÍLfB (Draft history ofthe Qing), p. 480; Biographies (Liezhuan ^1JAI), p. 267. More extensive information about Li can be found in Hui Longsi AHShI, Erqu linian jilue —ÉÈffi^ftA (Chronological biographical record of Erqu), juan 45 of Erqu ji LZLEËJJft (Collected works ofErqu). 2."Retired scholar" does not capture the exact meaning ofzhengjun (also zhengshi Sti), an honorific title given to a scholar who, although summoned to office by the emperor, declines in favor of continuing a secluded life ofprivate scholarship. 3.Ii Yun fcB% et al., Qindingsiku quanshu zongmu tiyao %&MW-^kWfà SSIS (Authorized by his majesty, general catalog ofthe four treasuries complete library, with summary critiques ) (1781 wood block ed.; reprint, Taipei: Yiwen Yinshuguan, 1969), entry on Li Yong, Sishu fanshen Iu, 37:41b.© 1998 by University ofHawai'i Press Francesca Bray. Technology and Gender: Fabrics ofPower in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1997. xvi, 419 pp. Paperback $19.95, isbn 0-520-20861-7. Women's roles in Chinese society in the years between a.d. 1000 and 1800 are the subject ofFrancesca Bray's elegandy crafted and thought-provoking new book. Drawing on the work ofanthropologists, feminists, and social, cultural, comparative , scientific, and economic historians—to name but a few disciplines—Bray weaves an account ofthe place women held in Chinese societybased on their knowledge ofthe technology ofsilk making and expands her ideas to include how architecture defined women's place and how the bearing and rearing ofchildren 74 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 1998 elevated it. Beginning with a long introduction that considers many topics including the meaning of spinning and weaving as well as clothing styles in various societies to the nature of rice cultivation (the subject of Bray's previous work), the author draws many cross-cultural comparisons from ancient Rome to early modern Britain. The main text is divided into three sections: on architecture and how the traditional Chinese home, however grand or humble, provided a specific place for the work ofwomen; on weaving and the related tasks of spinning, sewing, and embroidering and how they functioned to make women's work an essential part of the Chinese economy from the family unit to the central state; and on reproduction and the Chinese understanding of it in terms of the timing of children, contraception, abortion, and medical science and technology. Drawing from the Chinese classics on form and ritual as well as the Carpenter 's Canon, the author demonstrates how the traditional Chinese house had separate rooms for conducting family rituals and for the work of men and women. Although men might spend the night in the women's rooms with their wives, they were expected to leave that part of the house in the daytime to engage in their work elsewhere—in the fields for the farmers or in the study for the scholars . Indeed, in elite families, the men's study, although within the same house, was set apart from the women's quarters so that during the day each was at work within her/his own sphere. The early emphasis the Chinese placed on conforming to proper ritual meant that the doors of their houses faced south, the front hall was for receiving guests, the center of the main structure was reserved for the ancestral...