Worthy Women: A Few Women, A Few Sentences

Two books file women under two headings. The Shishuo Xinyu has a category called 賢媛, thirty-two entries, one or two sentences each. The Book of Jin has a chapter called 列女傳, thirty-three biographies, one to a woman. Both names are the editors': nothing on either page has a woman calling herself either. Both books are late — the Shishuo was compiled under the Liu Song, the Jin history under the Tang — and this article is about two ways of filing women, not about the lives of women in general. One book is an anthology of talk, arranged by type; the other is a dynastic history, arranged by person. Everything else follows from that.

Two Names, Both the Editors'

The Shishuo gives no preface and no rule. Its page opens with the heading 賢媛, 'worthy women', and the table of contents puts it between 棲逸, 'lodging in retirement', and 術解, 'explaining techniques': a drawer in a cabinet of types. There are thirty-two entries. The first is the mother of Chen Ying at the end of Qin; the last few are the mother of Han Kangbo under the Eastern Jin. A file that runs from the Qin collapse to the Eastern Jin is not a period — it is a category. The absence of a preface is itself information: the category is a shelf label, not an argument.

The Jin history does have a preface, and the preface states its rule. The chapter is 卷九十六, 列傳第六十六, 列女傳. It covers 上從泰始，下迄恭安, and collects 一操可稱，一藝可紀，咸皆撰錄，為之傳云 — one upright act worth naming, one skill worth recording, and a biography follows. It excludes two groups: 或位極后妃，或事因夫子，各隨本傳，今所不錄, empresses and consorts have their own chapters; and 在諸偽國…亦同搜次，附於篇末, women of the rival states are appended at the end. It also claims a lineage, 子政緝之於前，元凱編之於後, Liu Xiang before and Huangfu Mi after, and a purpose, 具宣閨範，有裨陰訓. The rule is generous in one direction and narrow in another: one act or one skill is enough to enter, but birth at the very top keeps a woman out of this chapter altogether.

One Entry and One Biography

The Shishuo's unit is a single scene. 許允婦，是阮衛尉女，德如妹，奇醜 — Xu Yun's wife was the daughter of the commandant of the guards and the sister of Deru, and famously ugly; the entry then gives one exchange: 婦曰：「新婦所乏唯容爾。然士有百行，君有幾？」…「夫百行以德為首，君好色不好德，何謂皆備？」 No date, no aftermath; the entry ends where the sentence ends. Her family, which the text gives in half a line, is spelled out in Liu Xiaobiao's commentary from the Wei lue and the Chenliu gazetteer — the note does the work the text does not. The note is where the Shishuo keeps the paperwork of rank and pedigree; the main text keeps the scene.

The Jin history's unit is a life. It opens with relation, name, place and parentage: 王渾妻鍾氏，字琰，潁川人，魏太傅繇曾孫也。父徽，黃門郎. Then the acts, in order; then a verdict: 琰明鑒遠識，皆此類也, her clear judgment and far-reaching insight were all of this kind. The same three women who appear in the Shishuo appear here at length, and the interest lies in what each form does with them. Relation first, then parentage, then deeds, then judgement: the order is the same in every biography in the chapter.

The Shishuo can also be one line with no scene: 趙母嫁女，女臨去，敕之曰：「慎勿為好！」女曰：「不為好，可為惡邪？」母曰：「好尚不可為，其況惡乎？」 A mother's instruction on a wedding day, a daughter's question, a mother's answer, and the entry closes. Many of the thirty-two are no longer than this. Such an entry has no before and no after; it is a single exchange preserved because it was thought worth preserving.

Three Women in Two Books

Zhong Yan, wife of Wang Hun, is two entries in the Shishuo and one biography in the Jin history. The Shishuo has the choosing of a husband for her daughter — 有兵家子，有雋才…母曰：「此才足以拔萃，然地寒，不有長年，不得申其才用。觀其形骨，必不壽，不可與婚。」 — and separately the relations with her sister-in-law, 鍾、郝為娣姒，雅相親重。鍾不以貴陵郝，郝亦不以賤下鍾. The biography runs both into one life and adds what the entries lack: 琰數歲能屬文，及長，聰慧弘雅，博覽記籍。美容止，善嘯詠, and a joke that is only here, 若使新婦得配參軍，生子故不翅如此. The same judgement on the suitor is worded differently — 觀其形骨，必不壽 in the Shishuo, 地寒壽促 in the Jin history — and on her descent the pages disagree by a generation: the Shishuo's note, quoting the Wang genealogy, calls her 太傅繇之孫, the Jin history calls her 曾孫, and the Shishuo's other entry also says 曾孫. The article leaves them side by side. The two pages disagree not only about words but about what a woman's family is for: a line in a genealogy, or a frame for a story.

Tao Kan's mother, Zhan, is two entries in the Shishuo and one biography in the Jin history, and the books put her two famous acts in the opposite order: the Shishuo has the hair first and the pickled fish second, the Jin history the pickled fish first and the hair second. Here the Shishuo's order is followed. The Shishuo's hair entry is also much fuller: 湛頭髮委地，下為二髲，賣得數斛米，斫諸屋柱，悉割半為薪，剉諸薦以為馬草 — hair to the ground, made into two switches, sold for several hu of rice; the pillars sawed in half for firewood; the mats cut up for horse feed. The Jin history keeps only 徹所臥親薦，自銼給其馬，又密截發賣與鄰人, and supplies what the Shishuo never says: 陶侃母湛氏，豫章新淦人也。初，侃父丹娉為妾…湛氏每紡績資給之. It also closes differently: where the Shishuo has Fan Kui 嘆其才辯 and promising 當相為美談, the Jin history gives one verdict, 非此母不生此子. Neither page explains the order, and neither connects the two acts to each other.

Xie Daoyun is the clearest case of the category deciding what you read. The line everyone knows, 未若柳絮因風起, is not in 賢媛 at all; it is in the Shishuo's 言語 chapter. What 賢媛 carries is three entries — the complaint against her husband, 不意天壤之中，乃有王郎; the jab at her brother, 為是塵務經心，天分有限; and the nun's verdict. The Jin history takes the catkins, the complaint, the jab, and adds what the Shishuo never had: the debate behind a green silk screen, 乃施青綾步鄣自蔽，申獻之前議，客不能屈; the Sun En rebellion, 手殺數人，乃被虜, and the plea for her grandson, 事在王門，何關他族; the widowhood and the talk with the governor Liu Liu; and the closing line, 道韞所著詩賦誄頌並傳於世. One character differs in the brothers' childhood names, 遏 in the Shishuo and 羯 in the Jin history, and the notes disagree about which name belongs to whom; the two are left as they stand. The category, not the woman, decides whether the catkins are filed with the complaint.

Once the two books agree almost word for word. The nun Ji, asked to compare the two women, says 王夫人神情散朗，故有林下風氣。顧家婦清心玉映，自是閨房之秀, and both pages carry it. That is the exception; the rule is that one form gives a sentence and the other gives a life.

The Verdict at the End

The Jin history also has an appraisal, and it names the women it means: 至若惠風之數喬屬，道韞之對孫恩，荀女釋急於重圍，張妻報怨于強寇, and then judges them, 斯皆冥踐義途，匪因教至, they walked the road of right without being taught. The closing 贊 works in the vocabulary of ritual: 從容陰禮，婉娩柔則。載循六行，爰昭四德…彤管貽訓. The Shishuo has nothing corresponding: an entry ends on its own last sentence, and no one says what it was worth.

What This Article Leaves Out

It does not set the two books against each other as witnesses: they are late compilations in different forms, and where they differ the article says which says what and does not decide. It does not stitch them into one complete life, and it does not go past the three women both books treat — most of the thirty-two have no biography in the Jin history at all. It offers no general account of women in the Wei-Jin period: ages at marriage, property, law and household economy are not on either page. Where the Shishuo's information sits in Liu Xiaobiao's note, the note is marked as a note. The articles on Han, Tang and Ming women and the one on recluses take other questions; this one is about two categories and two ways of writing. The figures are kept: thirty-two, thirty-three, 泰始 and 恭安. What the two pages offer is a set of headings and two house styles, and this article stays with them.

Related reading：Long and Ever Growing: Ancestors, a War, and One Preface Line · The Case Book: Cang Gong's Register of Patients · At the First Crow: One Day in a Gentleman's Household, According to the Rites