Gender Roles In Rome And China

Words: 1233
Pages: 5

Although the changes in political and cultural roles in gender in China and Rome were patriarchal, Rome was affected mostly through Christianity rather than the politics of the empire, while China was affected more through Confucianism than Buddhism. During the Middle Ages, 500-1500 A.D., the restrictions on women culturally and politically changed over the years. The introduction of new religions and new branches of old religions caused major cultural changes with culture’s role in gender. New rulers and dynasties caused changes in politics’ role with gender, especially in China.
In China, although culture didn’t have a major impact on gender roles it had a small role, Buddhism was really popular because it didn’t disrespect merchants as bad as other religions had and it followed general Chinese values. The only difference was that Buddhist nuns had more freedoms inside their monasteries, but were still inferior to their fellow priests. Although Hinduism didn’t play a huge role in China, it affected
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Culturally China tended to draw away from outer influences after they accepted Buddhism, meaning there wasn’t really any changes culturally in gender roles after Buddhism. Yet in Rome there was a fierce cultural rivalry between Islam and Christianity, meaning that there was changes happening through that rivalry. As religion spread with trade it changed as it moved along trade routes and other regions could pick up certain traits of different religions, causing different cultures to change. China and Rome interacted because of migration, trade, and religious contacts; religious contacts allowed for conversions and different civilizations that were far apart to be connected. New religions; Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism challenged traditional ideas of inequality causing changes to happen because of different times and places (Adams 204,