Presence and presentation

"Presence and Presentation is the first volume of essays to focus on the lives of Chinese women before the tenth century. An array of scholars examines historical, religious, and literary texts from medieval China (mainly from the third to the tenth centuries) and discovers surprisingly modern topics. A princess dies of a miscarriage as a result of marital violence, marriages are made to form political alliances, and an imperial consort is blamed for natural disasters. Using the perspectives of women who lived during this time, Presence and Presentation scrutinizes male-crafted documents to open new windows on the way many Chinese women lived during the days of the Middle Ages."--BOOK JACKET.