How were women trated in 19th Century China?
From what I have read and seen, both rich and poor women were in powerless positions, if not actually treated badly. When I visited China in 1980, I still saw a couple of old women who had had their feet bound as children and could only hobble on their crippled feet. Foot binding was only practiced in wealthy families. Listening to people talk about their history (and reading lots about it), it was clear to me that women, both rich and poor, had no real power and were mostly at the mercy of their fathers. Rich women were bartered to husbands who wanted to gain status by marrying them, and poor women were lucky to survive to adulthood — they were a liability because fathers had to pay for them to be married. Many were sold into slavery instead. Still, there was a great deal of what Europeans would call “chivalry”, and there were undoubtedly women who felt pampered and loved, even if they were powerless in the modern sense.
