Biographies of Exemplary Women

The Biographies of Exemplary Women (Chinese: 列女傳) is a book compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang c. 18 BCE. It includes 125 biographical accounts of exemplary women in ancient China, taken from early Chinese histories including Chunqiu, Zuozhuan, and the Records of the Grand Historian. The book served as a standard Confucianist textbook for the moral education of women in traditional China for two millennia.

Biographies of Exemplary Women

An 11th-century woodblock print of the book
Author	Liu Xiang
Original title	列女傳
Language	Classical Chinese
Genre	Biography
Publication date	c. 18 BCE
Publication place	Han China
Dewey Decimal	920.051
LC Class	PG3366.S6
Original text	列女傳 at Chinese Wikisource

Biographies of Exemplary Women
Traditional Chinese	列女傳
Simplified Chinese	列女传
Literal meaning	arrayed biographies of women
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Liènǚ Zhuàn Wade–Giles Lieh4 nü3 chʻuan2 Middle Chinese Middle Chinese /liᴇt̚ ɳɨʌX ɖˠiuᴇn/ Old Chinese Zhengzhang /*red naʔ don/

Description

The idealized biographies are divided into eight scrolls, including the eighth addendum from an unknown editor, as shown below.

Chapter	Chinese	Translation
1	母儀傳 mǔ yí zhuàn	Matronly Models
2	賢明傳 xián míng zhuàn	The Worthy and Enlightened
3	仁智傳 rén zhì zhuàn	The Benevolent and Wise
4	貞順傳 zhēn shùn zhuàn	The Chaste and Obedient
5	節義傳 jié yì zhuàn	The Principled and Righteous
6	辯通傳 biàn tōng zhuàn	The Accomplished Speakers
7	孽嬖傳 niè bì zhuàn	Depraved Favorites
8	續列女傳 xù liè nǚ zhuàn	Supplemental Biographies

This book follows the lièzhuàn (列傳 "arrayed biographies") biographical format established by the Chinese historian Sima Qian. The word liènǚ (列女 "famous women in history") is sometimes understood as liènǚ (烈女 "women martyrs"), which Neo-Confucianists used to mean a "woman who commits suicide after her husband's death rather than remarry; [a] woman who dies defending her honor."

The online Chinese Text Initiative at the University of Virginia provides an e-text edition of the Lienü Zhuan, including both digitized Chinese content and images of a Song dynasty woodblock edition with illustrations by Gu Kaizhi (c. 344-405 CE) of the Jin dynasty.^[1]

Biographies included

The female assassin

In the first chapter, titled 母儀傳 (mǔ yí zhuàn), translated to mean Matronly Models are the following biographies:

1. 卷一之一 有 虞 二 妃, translated to mean The Two Consorts of Youyu. In this story, Ehuang and Nüying, both daughters of Yao, were married to a man named Shun (another name for Youyu). The sisters served their husband and worked in the fields even though they were daughters of the emperor. Shun's family disliked him and made many attempts to kill him, but he survived due to his own strength and the aid of his wives. He bore his family no resentment. Later, he was promoted to General Regulator and hosted people from all over. Yao tested Shun multiple times, and each time he consulted his wives who continued to serve and aid him. Shun ended up succeeding Yao and became the Son of Heaven. In this story, Ehuang and Nüying were seen as intelligent, perceptive, chaste and benevolent.^[2]

• Meng Mu, the mother of Mencius (孟子), a single mother who raised her son carefully despite poverty
• Zheng Mao (鄭瞀), advised her husband, who lost power shortly after she killed herself
• Consort Ban (班婕妤), (48 BCE – 6 BCE), scholar and poet, pleaded legal cases
• Empress Zhao Feiyan (趙飛燕) (c. 32 BCE – 1 BCE), empress from 16 BCE until 7 BCE, a powerful courtier
• Empress Wang (王皇后) (8 BCE – 23 CE), last empress of the Western Han, refused to remarry after a coup
• Empress Ma (馬皇后) (40–79 CE), empress from 60 CE until her death in 79 CE, a political advisor known for her modesty and frugality
• Bo Ying (伯嬴), mother to King Zhao of Chu, fought her would-be rapist with a knife and lectured him on morality

By the coauthor Huangfu Mi:

• Zhao E (趙娥), noble of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, decapitated her father's killer and turned herself in
• Xiahou Lingnu (夏侯令女), aristocrat of the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period, refused to remarry after her husband's family were executed for treason
• Wang Yi (王異), wife of Zhao Ang

See also

• Historiography
• Chinese Historiography
• De Mulieribus Claris, parallel in Western literature