Diminished Empire and Nomadic Challengers 75
adding to their allure. So the female bound foot came to symbolize
many things: wealth, leisure, sophistication, artistic skill, beauty, virtue,
and sexiness—a powerful combination of positive associations.
In other ways, the Song marriage system improved women’s cul-
tural opportunities, as wealthy families began to educate more of their
daughters so they would be able to teach their young sons in the basics
of literacy, to give them a head start in their long examination prepara-
tion. Female literacy thus became one more qualifi cation in the com-
petitive marriage market. This began a trend that was to continue on
into the twentieth century.
China’s greatest female poet, Li Qingzhao (1084–c. 1151), lived in
the Song period. She had a very close relationship with her husband,
Zhao Mingcheng, and they shared a passion for poetry and collecting
antique seals, paintings, and bronze inscriptions. Together they compiled
an extensive catalogue of early bronze inscriptions and stone carvings.
She sometimes celebrated their love in her poems. “Should my beloved
chance to ask / If my face is fair as a fl ower’s / I’ll put one aslant in my hair
/ Then ask him to look and compare.”^1 When the Jin invaders came in
1127, the couple’s home was burned, and they lost most of their precious
art collection. They fl ed to the south, and Zhao died two years later, leav-
ing his wife a widow at forty-fi ve. Little is known of her last twenty-two
years apart from the fact that she briefl y remarried an abusive man and
fi led for a divorce within three months. Such behavior was scandalous
to Chinese scholars in later periods, when chastity was seen as the only
proper course of action for a “cultured” woman as a widow.
Given the Song’s assertion of civil authority over military leaders,
its elevation of civil over martial values, and the growing military power
of its nomadic neighbors, it may seem surprising that the dynasty was
able to survive as long as it did. The main reason for this was a virtual
economic revolution that made Song China the most prosperous and
highly developed society on earth. Agricultural productivity increased
dramatically in Song times, in part because more land came under cul-
tivation as the population continued to move southward. New strains
of early-ripening rice were developed in the south, allowing for two rice
crops per year. The government began to print agricultural manuals to
spread the newest techniques for increasing crop yields. Farmers began
specializing in crops such as mulberry trees for silkworms, tea, sugar
cane, bamboo, hemp, and ramie to produce fi bers for cloth, and even-
tually cotton (introduced from India in Tang times), which became a
major cash crop by the end of the Song. Interregional and international
trade expanded, and along with these came a thriving money economy.