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I haven't seen Mulan yet (though my husband bought it, so I eventually will), but my old Mulan thread is resurfacing again, and I've been having exchanges with @KatjeXia about women and agency in sixth-century China, which is part of my current research 1/12 https://twitter.com/kate_lingley/status/1057021537297948673
I mentioned to her that there was a sixth-century writer who kvetched about Northern women and their independence while praising Southern women's feminine propriety, but I couldn't remember exactly what he said and wasn't sure where I saw it. Well now I am: 2/12
It's in the "Family Instructions for the Yan clan" 顏氏家訓, written by Yan Zhitui 顏之推 (531-591), the earliest relatively complete survival of this kind of text, written in the later years of his life. It contains all sorts of advice about running a family 3/12
...including the education of sons, character and behavior, the preservation of health, rules for mourning etc. Yan was a Southerner by birth but had been forced to flee to the North with his family for political reasons, and seems to have considered himself an exile 4/12
In the chapter called 治家 "Regulation of the family" he has this to say about the women of Ye, the Northern Qi capital: 江東婦女，略無交遊，其婚姻之家，或十數年間，未相識者，惟以信命贈遺，致殷勤焉。5/12
鄴下風俗，專以婦持門戶，争訟曲直，造請逢迎，車乘填街衢，綺羅盈府寺，代子求官，爲夫訴屈。此乃恆、代之遺風乎？南間貧素，皆事外飾，車乘衣服，必貴整齊；家人妻子，不免飢寒。河北人事，多由內政，綺羅金翠，不可廢闕，羸馬顇奴，僅充而已；倡和之禮，或爾汝之。6/12
A (very) rough translation might be: "Women of the South hardly interact [with people outside the home]; they may go ten or more years in their married home without meeting [others], but only communicate their hospitality and solicitousness through letters and gifts. 7/12
"[Yet] it is the custom of Ye for women to control the household, arguing and debating, inviting and receiving guests. Their carriages fill the streets and their silks fill the offices, as they seek official positions for their sons, and defend their husbands against insult. 8/12
"Could this be a holdover from the customs of Heng and Dai [i.e. the Xianbei people]? In the south they are modest in outward appearance, and value correctness in carriages and clothing. A wife [follows her husband] even if it means hunger and cold. 9/12
"North of the River, people's affairs are governed from the women's quarters, and they cannot do without rich silks and ornaments, while horses and servants are a necessity; the propriety by which the husband commands and the wife follows is looked down on." 10/12
Yan Zhitui makes it pretty clear which version of womanhood he prefers, but despite his polemic against the greedy and showy women of the North, I would love to meet these women who didn't think it was their duty to starve when their husbands fell on hard times. 11/12
The context he describes is exactly the context of Mulan's original story, and it fits her actions exactly. Women who do what needs to be done: that's our Mulan. 12/12
