Gender and early Chinese cosmology revisited

Abstract

This article proposes to challenge the generally accepted argument that early Chinese cosmology transcended questions of gender by presenting a new analysis of the Xian 咸 and other relevant hexagrams in the Classic of Changes (Yijing 易經), as well as their classical commentaries. This new study shows that, the concept of the resonant gendered relation of husband and wife played a significant role in constructing social relations and cosmological modes implied in this significant classic. The harmonious husband–wife relation was placed at the center of the social, political, and cosmic order. This may be one reason that from about the same period, Confucian moral and political philosophy always emphasized the importance of ordering one’s family before governing the state. In this sense, the Chinese cosmology, as seen in the Classic of Changes, does not transcend gender; on the contrary, it is gendered.