The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period

This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the lives of women in Sung China (960-1279 AD). The author explores such topics as marriage, dowries, rites and celebrations, women's work, husband-wife relations, motherhood, widowhood, concubines, and match-making. Because of the need to rely on written materials for much of the information, and because literacy was restricted mainly to the educated and upper classes, the book naturally contains many more details about the lives of rich women than of the poor. Nevertheless, Ebrey was still able to distill some information about peasant women and families as well. The book will appeal to anyone interested in women's studies, Chinese history, or Asian area studies.