well, i have a quibble. i think that's not quite fair, because the quotation from 班昭 (let's just stick to ban1 zhao1, as the wade-giles is confusing) on the precepts of women is badly translated and taken out of context.

i better get this out of the way right away: of course i agree, broadly, that the 女戒 upheld patriachal, confucian ideals and was influential on the conduct of women, and that she did believe that women should submit to the will of their husbands, and that it did endorse some values that today we no longer find acceptable. on the other hand, the rexroth/lung selection was extremely unfair, especially when taken out of its context, particularly i dislike that it has meshed together lines and ideas from different sections and passed over others. i also dislike the translation, which i think is biased towards modern (specifically nineteen-seventies) ideals of female emancipation, sounding more condescending than it should, and without the elegance and thoughtfulness of the original text, which is no wonder the english text gives more offence than the original. it also doesn't seem to me to be particularly accurately rendered.

what she actually said was:

女有四行，一曰妇德，二曰妇言，三曰妇容，四曰妇功。夫云妇德，不必才明绝异也；妇言，不必辩口利辞也；妇容，不必颜色美丽也；妇功，不必工巧过人也。清闲贞静，守节整齐，行己有耻，动静有法，是谓妇德。择辞而说，不道恶语，时然后言，不厌于人，是谓妇言。盥浣尘秽，服饰鲜洁，沐浴以时，身不垢辱，是谓妇容。专心纺绩，不好戏笑，洁齐酒食，以奉宾客，是谓妇功。

班昭 i don't think has ever excluded women's participation in the intellectual life at high levels. she was herself the first major chinese female historian who came from a scholarly family, was highly educated in both literature and science (she knew, by all accounts, geography, astronmy, etc), and was commissioned to complete the 汉书 (begun by her father, and continued by her brother.) she was given unrestricted access to the most important libraries by the emperor, and she singlehandedly collated, editted, revised and completedthe 汉书 . she was highly respected at court for her intellectual abilities, and when she explicated on the 汉书 she was teaching male scholars. she believed women should be educated (that they should have eight years of education. that would be up till they're fifteen.) and tutored the women of the imperial household. i think one ought add too that she did not write it as a tract, or even as an official advice manual for governing women's conduct. it was written, when she was in her seventies, as a guide for the women of her personal household (though she herself was childless) but it quickly became one of the most copied texts of the period and achieved a wide circulation. actually it would be quite interesting to look at the textual variants, wouldn't it? does ling/rexroth say what text they're working from? someone must have constructed the stemma. though actually nevermind i'm not that interested.

you know what? actually ancient chinese divorce laws are related to, but much more interesting than, conduct manuals. the 七出, or seven infringements for which a woman can be divorced, were codified by the han dynasty, but were at the same time countered by certain legal checks - a wife could not be divorced even if she has committed any of the seven infringements, if she has no surviving relations whose house she can return to (有所取無所歸), and - i like this one - she couldn't be divorced if the husband, at time of marriage, was poor, but has now become wealthy. (前貧賤後富貴. very first wives club!) and also not if the wife has in mourning for her husband's parents for three years. 與更三年喪. and in turn there are other conditions that overturn these - such as the cause of bodily harm by either party.