Page 25 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

12 ANNE E.MCLAREN
contemporary periods. She notes that notions of work done by women have been
understood narrowly as the production of goods and services, with little attention paid to
the symbolic aspects of women’s work, which included the power to protect the family
through ritual means and ‘mediation between the household and supernatural forces’.
Much ink has been spilt about what women gained from the revolution and socialist
reforms. Very rarely has the question been asked about what women may have lost in the
process of modernisation. McLaren argues that when women departed from their homes
and farms for factories and collective enterprises, they commonly lost a fellowship with a
community of women, with whom they had laboured and enjoyed a rich oral and ritual
culture. In the new work units (danwei) run by the socialist state, leadership positions were
held by male cadres, not older women. Government campaigns against ‘superstition’ also
robbed communities of traditional marriage and funeral ceremonies, where women had
often played powerful roles as ritual lamenters.
Once one examines popular perceptions of women’s work through the lens of
women’s oral and ritual culture, a more nuanced picture of gendered notions of labour
emerges. McLaren examines four case studies that illustrate ‘the intersection between
oral arts, ritual culture and the daily tasks defined as “women’s work” in rural China’.
These case studies reveal a surprising level of female agency in the ritual organisation of
domestic space and, in some cases, of village communities.
In the bridal laments examined by McLaren in Nanhui, a coastal county belonging to
the jurisdiction of Shanghai, the bride constructs notions of female labour that project a
strong sense of the importance of her work for the family. The Chinese marriage system
relied on the transfer of the bride’s labour from her natal home to the household of her
parents-in-law. It was crucial to the face of her natal family that the young woman acquire
appropriate domestic skills in spinning, weaving, cooking and the diplomatic skills
necessary in serving a large household. The bride fears not the judgement of the groom but
the harsh words of her mother-in-law, his sisters and aunts. It is clear that the domestic
space of her husband’s household is in the control not of the menfolk but of the senior
women. The bride’s goal is to acquire the sort of skills that will allow her to dominate the
household in her turn, as the mother-in-law ages and she acquires maturity. It is by her
household skills and knowledge of correct protocols that she will be assessed.
The cult to the Maiden of the Lavatory (Keng San guniang), investigated by Chen
Qinjian, is a fascinating example of another ritual performance also practised by young
girls. The cult was based around the removal of barrels of human waste to a manure pit
located at the back of the residence. This was a humble task, commonly carried out by
women, but one of great importance in the production of fertiliser for use on crops. The
ritual involved calling on the Keng San Maiden to descend from the manure pit into an empty
wicker basket, carrying the (invisible) deity back to the main room of the house, and
calling on the deity to ‘write’ on rice bran scattered on the dining table. The girls would
ask questions of the deity relating to their future husbands, their married life and future
children, all matters of burning interest to unmarried women in China. One could
speculate that the cult allowed these girls a sense of control over their own destiny, or
provided a source of consolation in a situation where they appear to be the powerless objects
of a patriarchal marriage system. McLaren concludes that this cult ‘shows how even very