252 Cao Xueqin
from their studies, poetry composed by the girls in
Prospect Garden during the imperial concubine’s
visit epitomizes the best of Chinese literary culture.
An erudite Yuan-chun even improves on Chinese
names given to places in the garden that have previ-
ously been chosen by a group of literary gentlemen.
When Bao-yu falters in verse construction, Dai-yu
and Bao-chai exercise their scholarship by render-
ing him valuable poetic assistance. Later, Xue Pan’s
delinquent ways are sharply contrasted against his
sister Bao-chai’s dutiful and sensible nature. She
becomes her mother’s source of emotional support
during Xue Pan’s extended stay in jail and compe-
tently manages her household in a time of chaos.
Although the girls are obviously superior to the
Jia males, including Bao-yu, gender inequality in
Qing society keeps free expression of the girls’ talents
within the walls of the Jia mansions. The exquisite
poems crafted by Dai-yu and Bao-chai during the
Crab-flower Club’s meetings, for example, may have
been lost to posterity if not for Bao-yu’s promotion
of them outside the mansions. While the Jia men
enter and leave the mansions at will, the aristocratic
girls are prohibited from such movements and any
career pursuits of their own. Eventually, only Bao-
yu and his nephew, Jia Lan, sit for the civil service
examination to win prestige for the Jia clan.
Instead, the aristocratic girls are presented with
very few life options as they come of age. Their des-
tinies are, by default, to marry and leave their homes.
Thereafter, their lives are entirely subject to the
station and kindness of their husbands. An unfor-
tunate Ying-chun suffers in the hands of her vile
husband, Sun Shao-zu, to whom she was married on
her father’s insistence. She soon dies of neglect as a
result of her husband’s penny-pinching ways. Tan-
chun procures a good match through her father but
cannot visit her family for a long time after moving
to her bridal home on the coast. A reluctant Bao-
chai acquiesces to be Bao-yu’s wife in accordance
with the arrangement of the elders even though she
knows his heart lies with Dai-yu. Her suppression of
her feelings for filial obedience comes at the expense
of true marital happiness. Barring death, the other
viable life option for aristocratic girls is nunhood.
After much negotiation with her family, Xi-chun
takes up the nun’s habit as a preferable alternative
to marriage.
Given these rigid gender prescriptions, chastity
becomes the main means by which Chinese society
judges a woman. Society’s inegalitarian treatment
of women is especially pronounced when ruination
and death ensue the moment a woman’s chastity is
called into question. Rumors circulated by Xi-feng
on You Er-jie’s dubious virtue before marriage cause
the family and servants to lose respect for her, result-
ing in her suicide. When Liu Xiang-lian breaks off
his engagement to You San-jie, the latter slits her
throat before him as dramatic proof of her purity.
Chess’s adherence to the chastity rule dictating that
a woman may only engage in sexual relations with
one man in her lifetime and her mother’s adamant
refusal to release her to her lover instigates her dis-
may and suicide.
Indeed, Dream of the Red Chamber shows many
female characters with great potential to succeed in
life becoming disempowered by the society they live
in due to modest and unobtrusive behaviors that
are expected of their gender. Even the old matri-
arch, Grandmother Jia, is not immune to this. The
extent of her power never reaches beyond govern-
ing internal family matters. Toward the end of the
novel, she laments to having the wool pulled over
her eyes by the males of the clan, Jia She and Jia
Zhen, whose wayward behavior outside precipitates
the family’s downfall. While Xi-feng wins accolades
for her powerful managerial skills and seems to be
a counterexample to female disempowerment, one
is reminded that she pays for her unconventional
success with her spectacular fall from power and
increasingly ill health at the end of the novel.
To be fair, although Chinese society grants more
freedom to men, some men are by no means exempt
from a certain degree of suffering attendant to their
gender. Considerable pressure is placed on Bao-yu as
the male heir of the clan to accomplish honors in the
civil service examination. He finally sublimates his
desires, studies hard, and submits to this fate. Simi-
larly, Jia Zheng eschews irresponsible enjoyment in
favor of walking the rock-strewn path of righteous-
ness, unlike other male family members.
While the novel portrays suffering of the female
gender in a more sympathetic light, it would be