ABSTRACT
This chapter explores associational life in late imperial times, with an eye on the kinds of legacies these associations left for modern political change. A great deal of controversy over exactly this issue has erupted recently inspired by the revival of interest in civil society in Eastern Europe. The chapter explores the various cultural streams relevant to voluntary associations and relations between state and society is through some of the key Chinese terms that address these issues. China expressed its own self-image through such terms, seeing culture or civilization defined in part as Chinese literacy, and thus as a clear marker between classes of people and between China and other nations. Women in China appear to have taken on broader economic roles during the commercial expansion of the sixteenth century, and some male scholars at the time advocated accepting women as students. Women's horizontal networks were generally smaller in geographic scope than men's, and they rarely burst into formal arena.
