Women as Outsiders: Princesses, Defilement, and Buddhist Salvation

  • P. Steven Sangren
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Culture, Mind, and Society book series (CMAS)

Abstract

This chapter examines the consequences for women arising from the fact that the Chinese patrilineal imaginary is organized around a model-cum-fantasy of agency or subjectivity based on a son’s filial action. A well-known mythic narrative—the story of Princess Miaoshan—serves as a starting point for the analysis. The story focuses on a vexed daughter–father relationship and is thus in some respects complementary to the story of Nezha. Women constitute a problem for patriliny’s defining conceit—to wit, that son-agents invoke transcendent father figures in fantasies of self-production. The chapter also complicates a widely noted assumption to the effect that Buddhism and Confucianism conflict with respect to family values, arguing for a deeper congruence with respect to women. In addition to mythic narrative, the chapter discusses ethnobiological beliefs, gender ideologies, funerary practices, ideas about female pollution, cults of female deities, and depictions of family dynamics.

Keywords

Chinese Culture Filial Piety Gender Ideology Natal Family Father Figure 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • P. Steven Sangren
    • 1
  1. 1.Cornell UniversityIthacaUSA

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