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Women in Vietnamese society Vietnamese Vietnam Society About Vietnamese Communities Vietnam News Outlets Vietnam Public Media Outlets
According
to Confucian values, the life of a woman is governed by the rule of three
subordinations (Tam Tong). At home, she is
subordinated to her father, after her marriage she is subordinated to her
husband, and after her husband's death she is subordinated to her son (Tai
gia tong phu, xuat gia tong phu, phu tu tong tu). The Four Virtues (Tu
Duc) house keeping skills, beauty, appropriate
speech and moral conduct (cong, dung, ngon, hanh). Nguyen Trai, a fifteen-century
Vietnamese stateman, general, poet and scholar, described the
Four Virtues in these terms: 'Cong' is the ability to make every flavor of cakes and glutinous rice And skill in sewing and
embroidering. 'Dung' is solemn beauty Without being lithe or
flirtatious. 'Ngon' is polite,
deferential language, 'Hanh' is honesty,
respect and trustworthiness. (Gia
Huan Ca) However, despite this
traditional Confucian ideal, in reality, women have played a prominent role in
almost every aspect of the history of the country as well as the daily life of
the Vietnamese economy. Historic figures like the Trung sisters are now well
known to American and European historians and Ba Trieu (Lady Trieu, also kwon as
Trieu Au) is often mentioned a role model for modern
women rights activists and American feminists. The following paragraphs about
the Trung sisters and Ba Trieu are quoted from Vietnam, A History by
Stanley Karnow' A titled lady, Trung Trac,
avenging the murder of her dissident husband by a Chinese commander, led the
first major Vietnamese insurrection against China. She and her sister, Trung Nhi,
mustered other restive nobles and their vassals, including another woman, Phung
Thi Chinh who supposedly gave birth to a baby in the middle of the battle yet
continued to fight with the infant strapped to her back. They vanquished the
Chinese in A,D, 40 and, with the Trung sisters as queens, set up an independent
state that stretched from Hue into southern China. But the Chinese crushed it
only two years later, and the Trung sisters committed suicide-in aristocratic
style- by throwing themselves into a river. The Vietnamese still venerate them
at temples in Hanoi, Sontay and elsewhere.. Another woman, Trieu Au, the Vietnamese version of Joan of Arc, launched a revolt against China in A.D. 248, a generation after the collapse of the Han dynasty, wearing golden armor and riding an elephant as she led a thousand men into battle. Gloriously defeated at the age of twenty-three, she committed suicide rather than suffer the shame of surrender. Like the Trung sisters, she is remembered by a temple, and by her words of defiance:' I want to rail against the wind and the tide, kill the whales of the sea, sweep the whole country to save the people from slavery, and I refuse to be abused.' These feminine exploits, doubtless inflated in popular legend, illustrate the status of women in Vietnamese society. In contrast to their counterparts elsewhere in Asia and even in Europe, emancipated only recently, they could traditionally inherit land, serve as trustees of ancestral cults and share their husbands 'property'. Hien
V. Ho, MD
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