ABSTRACT
This chapter enters the subject of gender relations by juxtaposing the writings of Ban Zhao and Christine de Pisan, two women not only placed on opposite sides of a cultural divide but also separated by more than twelve hundred years. Christian humanism, unlike Kong Zi's philosophy, with its emphasis on family relationships, stressed the role of the individual man as the measure of all things. Initially motivated by political considerations in each case, in Europe the move away from feudalism was more dependent on economic developments. The family circle, no matter what its particular form, has historically been the initial setting for the socialization of male and female alike. As Charlotte Furth pointed out in her study of medical attitudes toward women in China, misogyny was softened by rationalism. Within the family arrangements or the time, Ban Zhao and Christine de Pisan, each in her own language, argued for the centrality of the marriage relationship between man and woman.
