31 pages • 1 hour read
Jonathan SpenceThe Death of Woman Wang
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Woman Who Ran Away”
The biographies of women in the Local History depict women who remained chaste, obedient, and loyal to their husbands, even to the death: “[F]ifteen 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). In one instance, a wife died by suicide while her husband was dying in prison; in others, betrothed women killed themselves when their families broke the marriage contracts (100-01).
The Local History also records stories of women who, during the Manchu invasion of the region in 1643, resisted, rescued their children, or died by suicide rather than face capture (102-03). Similarly, P’u’s story “Chang’s Wife” concerns a woman who tricks and kills two enemy soldiers (103-04). However, P’u’s stories also show less “moral” women, including one being seduced by a scholar (104-05). Another story describes a peasant woman whom a man from a wealthy family promises to marry. The two have sex, but even when she becomes pregnant, he instead marries a wife chosen by his family (107-09). Another story depicts a different unfortunate fate that could befall women: A gambling addict sells his beloved wife. He dies in prison after killing the man who convinced him to do so (109-16).
Then Spence discusses the historical case of Jen and his wife, Wang. Jen was a poor laborer, and the couple had no children. In 1671 Wang ran away with another man, rendering her guilty of a crime that could condemn her to at least 80 blows alongside her lover (120-21). In 17th-century China, a woman could only leave her husband if he seriously injured her or forced her to have sex with others. Also, living as a fugitive would have been difficult. Job opportunities for women were few (121-22), and the government actively investigated workers suspected of being fugitives (122-23). In the end, Wang’s lover abandoned her.
Apparently having no choice, Wang returned to her husband Jen. Afraid of her husband, she first took refuge in a nearby Taoist temple. When Jen found out his wife was at the temple, he got into an argument with a neighbor named Kao. During the fight, Kao struck Jen in the face, which was a crime (125). Kao and the priest tried to get Wang to stay at her father’s house. However, her father sent her back to Jen. Under Chinese law, Jen himself could have faced punishment for not divorcing a wife guilty of adultery, but the case was not pursued. After sharing another excerpt from P’u about a man who brutalizes and kills a woman (128-31), Spence explains that Jen strangled Wang to death.
Chapter 5 Analysis
As in several other chapters, Spence begins by discussing the legal condition of women and using P’u’s stories to provide cultural insights. The situation of commoner women in premodern China was difficult. They were held to strict moral standards to the point that women who sacrificed themselves for their husbands were idealized. At the same time, the law harshly punished women who committed adultery and even husbands who stayed married to their adulterous wives.
The case of Wang’s failed escape and murder demonstrates two different themes. The first is the extreme hardships facing average people in 17th-century China, especially in an impoverished region like T’an-ch’eng. The second is that even though the government and the law were a powerful presence in people’s lives, this power was not absolute. People did defy the law, as when Jen allowed Wang to move back into his house. Cultural rules were not always binding either. Wang’s father rejected her because she left her husband, but the Taoist priest offered Wang refuge, while Wang herself defied society by leaving her husband with her lover.
Because the local government was relatively weak, whether a person could get away with defying legal and cultural norms depended largely on how much power they individually wielded. The Wangs, for example, could defy the law through sheer brute force. For a poor woman like Wang, options were much more limited.
