Women of the Conquest Dynasties: Gender and Identity in Liao and Jin China

Abstract

China's historical women warriors hailed from the northeast (Manchuria) during the Liao (907-1125) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties. Celebrated in the Liao History, their independence and martial spirit were "unprecedented." They rode horseback astride, were good at hunting and shooting, and took part in military battles. Several empresses - and one famous bandit chief - led armies against the enemy Song state. Women of the Conquest Dynasties represents a groundbreaking effort to survey the customs and lives of these women from the Kitan and Jurchen tribes, who maintained their native traditions of horsemanship, militancy, and sexual independence while excelling in writing poetry and prose and earning praise for their Buddhist piety and Confucian ethics. Although much work has been devoted in the last few years to Chinese women of various periods, this is the first volume to incorporate recent archaeological discoveries and information drawn from Liao and Jin paintings as well as literary sources and standard historical accounts. The women of the northeast stand in vivid contrast to their counterparts in the south, where female identity was molded by a millennia of Confucian ethics and women were increasingly sequestered in the home and constrained by concepts of virtue. Women of the Conquest Dynasties provides new insights into the history of steppe patterns of feminine behaviour and reveals new areas of comparative study.