IN TRADITIONAL CHINA, ONE NEGATIVE characteristic routinely associated with the archetypal woman in a position of political power was “lack of natural motherly feeling.” By the Tang, there was a well-established narrative of the unnatural anti-mother.1 Historians of subsequent eras fitted Wu Zhao into this narrative tradition of the monstrous woman devoid of human feeling, cataloging a grim litany of her abominations against her own children—smothering her infant daughter in 654, murdering her eldest son Li Hong in 675, and sending second son Li Xián 李賢 (653–684) into exile where he was pressured into suicide in 684. Though such allegations of filicide are problematic,2 rumors of Wu Zhao’s unmotherly conduct swirled even in her own time. Keenly aware of the political stakes that imbued the issue of motherhood, Wu Zhao, especially as empress and grand dowager, took proactive measures to recast her image. She engaged in an ongoing campaign to frame herself as an ideal Confucian mother, not only of her own flesh-and-blood sons but of her “political sons” throughout the vast realm.
Women were not simply victims of an oppressive patriarchal society in traditional China. They were an integral part of an evolving structure, agents who operated both within and sometimes outside the patrilineal kin parameters of Confucian society. In her work Admonitions for Women Eastern Han poet-historian Ban Zhao emphasized the importance of a woman’s adherence to her Confucian role of obedience, duty, and reverence toward her in-laws; in writing a manual by a woman for women, she powerfully embodied the idea that Confucian learning was a moral force that could edify women, as well as men. She stressed competent domestic management and a mother’s duty to educate her sons.3 Women of elder generations and widows who adhered to these prescribed roles stood to gain significant influence within the larger corporate family.
Women successfully navigating the Confucian system not only exercised influence within their families but also exerted moral suasion on husbands and sons that shaped men’s handling of matters within the outer political realm. Anne Kinney has shown that in early China a mother’s influence upon the moral development and proper Confucian education of her sons began in utero.4 In her study of the role of women in the literati society of the late Ming (1368–1644) and early Qing (1644–1911) Jiangnan, Dorothy Ko acknowledges that Confucian tradition offered opportunities as well as constraints for women, even in the rigid family hierarchies of late imperial China.5
Judith Butler theorizes that playing normative social and cultural roles according to script served women as an important “survival strategy.”6 Ban Zhao (and virtually every dowager-regent down to Wu Zhao almost six centuries later) recognized this principle and understood the importance of couching her authority in terms palatable to the Confucian patriarchs. Decades of political experience as empress and grand dowager led Wu Zhao to gain a comprehensive, nuanced mastery of the Confucian script, apprehend its plasticity, exploit its loopholes, and avail herself of every opportunity afforded by the ideology. Presiding over a Confucian bureaucracy and living in a society in which Confucian values remained deeply imbedded, Wu Zhao naturally sought to frame herself as a custodian and champion of Confucian traditions rather than an iconoclast. To this end, she actively identified and channeled virtuous female paragons of the past. Her public celebration and propagation of Confucian values conferred upon her a certain ideological authority. While the Confucian exemplars honored in texts like Liu Xiang’s (79–8 B.C.) Western Han dynasty Biographies of Exemplary Women were not divinities akin to the Queen Mother of the West or Nüwa, affiliation with these culturally honored women helped fortify Wu Zhao’s position as empress and grand dowager.
The opening chapter of Biographies of Exemplary Women contains seventeen “Models of Maternal Rectitude” (mu yi 母儀), six of whom were incorporated into Wu Zhao’s pantheon of female political ancestors. The first three chapters in part II, “Dynastic Mothers, Exemplary Mothers,” will examine the connections that Wu Zhao fashioned with dynastic ancestors and spouses of founding dynastic rulers featured among these exemplars of “maternal rectitude.” Chapter 4 examines the connection between the medieval female sovereign and the Woman of Tushan 塗山氏 (1.4),7 who helped legendary Yu the Great found the Xia. Chapter 5 looks at the curious part Jiang Yuan 姜嫄 (1.2), who divinely birthed Hou Ji, the first ancestor of the Ji clan that ruled the Zhou, played in shaping Wu Zhao’s image. Chapter 6 explores the significant role that Taisi 太姒 (1.6), who helped King Wen establish the Zhou of antiquity, had in magnifying Wu Zhao’s political profile. The constructive roles of this trio of celebrated women in founding past dynasties made them a vital part of Wu Zhao’s developing pantheon.
Chapter 7, the fourth and final chapter in part II, examines how Wu Zhao and her talented rhetoricians skillfully marshaled four widowed mothers lifted from Biographies for Exemplary Women—Lady Ji of Lu (1.9), the mother of Mencius (1.11), the mother of General Zifa of the state of Chu (1.11), and the mother of General Zhao Kuo (3.15),8 to Wu Zhao’s considerable advantage. Though perhaps less eminent than the dynastic mothers, this quartet of strong-willed and wise widows had been renowned for a millennium for the sage counsel they offered their sons on a range of principles including public-mindedness, loyal service to the state, diligent commitment to one’s occupation, and even the art of governance.
All of these women, without transgressing Confucian boundaries or offending the protocol of the patriline, managed to wield not only significant domestic authority within the family but a measure of political influence in the state. Recognizing the tremendous normative currency vested in these idealized Confucian widows and mothers from early China, Wu Zhao strove diligently to connect her person to these paragons.
Over the centuries, many new and extended editions of Biographies of Exemplary Women have been compiled, loosely modeled on Liu Xiang’s prototype.9 Beginning with the Later Han History, assembled by Fan Ye in the fifth century, it became standard protocol in compiling dynastic histories to include a collective one-chapter biography of model women.10 Promulgated in 645, when Wu Zhao was but one of nine fifth-ranked Talents among Taizong’s bevy of concubines, the preface to the “Biographies of Exemplary Women” chapter in Fang Xuanling’s History of Jin shows that in the early Tang, a Confucian lineage of female political ancestors was well entrenched:
Yu rose from the bend in the Guishui River with the aid of the sisters (1.1).11 Xia flourished with the help of the Woman of Tushan (1.4). Youxin (1.5) of Yousong amplified and solidified the foundation of Yin.12 Tairen and Taisi (1.6) helped in the prosperous transformation of the Ji clan. Empresses Ma (8.19) and Deng13 were respectful and frugal, so the Han court could extend its virtue. Empresses Xuan and Zhao were good and virtuous, so the Wei dynasty broadcast its fragrance. They all elevated ritual propriety in the inner quarters and graced the moon chambers with their distinguished righteousness. The Mother of Mencius (1.11) sought benevolence. . . . Wenbo (1.9) was reprimanded for making his friend hold the sword. Zifa’s mother (1.14) made him share beans with his soldiers. . . . These women not only illuminated the regulations of wives, but skillfully practiced the rectitude of mothers.14
By design, this preface offers thumbnail introductions to many of the luminaries contained in Liu Xiang’s opening chapter, “Models of Maternal Rectitude.” Nine exemplary mothers from seven different entries are featured, including the majority of the Confucian female political ancestors in Wu Zhao’s pantheon.15 These paragons of motherhood were highlighted to manifest the very zenith of womanly deportment.
It is clear from the preface that even in the mind of a Confucian scholar-official in service of the Tang state, this vaunted lineage of eminent women was profoundly respected. Wu Zhao and her propagandists did not need to invent this Confucian lineage of women; more than a millennium of tradition had accomplished this already. Her task was far more delicate and thorny: it involved not only intricate rhetorical appropriation of the normative power of these past paragons, but a subtle tactical recalibration of their historical roles and meaning to justify her own burgeoning political presence.