If you only knew about these two, you either spent their days relying on their beauty as weapons in internecine power struggles, or ended up getting married off to the ruler of a distant land to cement some strategic alliance. A code of proper female conduct was explicitly prescribed for the first time by two books that were written about 2,000 years ago.
雖然趙飛燕與王昭君的故事，已加進了太多後人對女性的解讀，但看來朝氣蓬勃的漢朝，由於武帝獨尊儒術，儒家講究的人倫在漢朝被擴大解釋，西元前後就出現兩本被認為是最早以禮法裁定女子生活標準的書籍，一本是西漢末劉向的《列女傳》，一本是東漢初班昭的《女誡》。