Filial piety, gentleness, virtue, harmony, housekeeping... There have been many so-called virtuous women from ancient times to the present, many of whom were even talented women whose writings moved the world. However, countless of their poems and articles have been lost, but things like the Women's Analects have been preserved. As a woman, the empress dowager certainly would not have failed to think about the deep meaning behind these.
As for the famous talented women like Xie Daoyun and Li Qingzhao, their articles and poems have been passed down, but as for the advice to women to be submissive and weak, there is no such thing. The reason is very simple... Are they willing to be submissive? Are they submissive to their husbands? Xie Daoyun looked down on her useless husband. As for Li Qingzhao and Zhao Mingcheng, although they were in love, she still married again!
Even if someone intends to use their names to make up something like women's training and admonitions, others have to be willing to believe it!
At this moment, even though the Queen Mother had made many assumptions about this summons beforehand, she was still very surprised after hearing what Hong said.
As an ordinary daughter of a military family, she had not initially thought that she would end up sitting in her current position. Therefore, unlike those noble ladies who lived deep in the inner palace, she had seen all kinds of women, including many women of humble status in the common people, as well as many women with great insight and talent. Therefore, even a woman like Princess Yongping, who was known as a talented woman, was just ordinary in her eyes.
Therefore, Zhu Ying, a maverick and straightforward girl, actually liked her. However, she thought that since Hong had a father like that, he must be either as stubborn and conservative as Hong Shanchang, or he must be deep-minded and have ulterior motives. But now Hong actually said frankly that she had been deceiving Hong Shanchang all along, and that this father had never really understood her!
Not only did he lie, he even confessed that his lifelong ambition was to promote the interests of a weak and lonely woman!
At this moment, even Zhu Ying, who had been held tightly by Zhang Shou, could not help but ask, "Madam Hong, the weak and lonely women you are talking about are those poor people who were divorced by their husbands?"
"No." Hong raised her head slightly and looked directly into the Queen Mother's eyes. "It's not just those women who were divorced without reason by their husbands' families and not accepted by their parents, so they can only struggle in nunneries or even live on the streets who are pitiful. Equally pitiful are those women who were sold to shameful places because of poverty, and those women whose lives were arranged by their elders under various pretexts..."
"She was a woman who had lived a life of luxury in the past, but was at a loss when faced with a major change, and did not even have any survival skills; she was a woman who seemed to be proficient in poetry and songs, but had no idea how to manage a household, and ended up watching her useless husband and her family fall into decline."
"They are also those women who were born in poor families and only knew how to manage household chores and struggle to survive, which is how they can barely get enough food and clothing. But no matter how hard they work to manage the household, get married and have children, they are still powerless to control their children's future and can only leave it to fate. Even if their children work hard, they cannot make progress."
"Miss, the word lonely and weak does not mean alone. Even if some women have parents, brothers, husbands and sons, they are still alone in this world. No one understands them, and no one is willing to spend time to understand them. Even they themselves may not know what they want. As for weak, it is not because of unvirtuousness or lack of virtue that they are weak."