Ban Zhao: China's First Known Female Historian and Scholar

Ban Zhao (c. AD 45 – c. 117) was a scholar of the Eastern Han dynasty who completed the Book of Han, one of China’s great official histories, and became the first woman in China known by name as a historian. She also taught at the imperial court in Luoyang and wrote Lessons for Women, a short guide to female conduct that shaped ideas about women in China for nearly two thousand years.

Her life is described in the Book of the Later Han, in its chapter of biographies of exemplary women, which also preserves her best-known writings.

A family of historians

Ban Zhao was born into a distinguished scholarly family. Her father, Ban Biao (AD 3–54), began writing a continuation of the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian. Her elder brother Ban Gu turned that work into a full history of the Western Han dynasty, the Hanshu, or Book of Han. Her other elder brother, Ban Chao, became a famous general in Central Asia.

At about fourteen she married Cao Shishu, from the same commandery. He died young, and Ban Zhao remained a widow for the rest of her long life. She never remarried, which later moralists held up as a virtue.

Completing the Book of Han

Ban Gu was caught up in the fall of the powerful general Dou Xian in AD 92 and died in prison, leaving the Book of Han unfinished. Emperor He then commissioned Ban Zhao to complete it, working in the imperial library at the Dongguan, the court’s centre for scholarship.

She is credited with the history’s eight tables, which list rulers, nobles and officials, and, with the scholar Ma Xu, with its treatise on astronomy. Her mastery of the text was such that the court sent the young scholar Ma Rong, later one of the most famous Confucian commentators, to study the Book of Han under her direction.

The Book of Han became the model for all later Chinese dynastic histories, which followed its pattern of annals, tables, treatises and biographies.

Teacher at court

Emperor He invited Ban Zhao to the palace to teach the empress and the women of the court, covering classics, history, astronomy and mathematics. Among her pupils was Deng Sui, who became empress in AD 102.

After Emperor He died early in AD 106, Deng Sui ruled as regent for the young emperors who followed, and Ban Zhao served as one of her trusted advisers. Her biography records that she gave advice on state affairs, and her influence helped her son receive office and a noble title.

About AD 100 she wrote a memorial to the throne asking that her brother Ban Chao, by then old and ill after thirty years in the Western Regions, be allowed to come home. The request was granted, and he returned to Luoyang in 102.

Lessons for Women

Ban Zhao’s most famous work is Lessons for Women (Nüjie), written in her later years and addressed to the young women of her family. In seven short chapters it covers humility, the relationship of husband and wife, respect and caution, womanly qualifications, devotion, obedience, and harmony with in-laws.

The text teaches that a wife should be modest, diligent and obedient to her husband and his family, and it reflects the Confucian family order of its time. Yet it also argued that girls, like boys, should be taught to read, so that they could understand their duties. That argument for female literacy was unusual in its day.

From the Ming and Qing periods onwards, Lessons for Women was included in a standard collection known as the Four Books for Women and was widely used to teach girls. In the twentieth century reformers criticised it as a pillar of women’s subordination, while historians have stressed that its author was herself an exceptional public scholar.

Other writings and death

Ban Zhao also wrote poems in the rhapsody (fu) form, including “Travelling Eastward”, describing a journey from Luoyang. After her death, around AD 117 at about seventy years old, her daughter-in-law collected her works in three scrolls, most of which are now lost. The Empress Dowager Deng is said to have worn mourning for her, an exceptional honour.

Timeline

• c. AD 45: Ban Zhao is born into the Ban family of Fufeng commandery.
• c. AD 59: She marries Cao Shishu at about fourteen.
• AD 92: Ban Gu dies in prison; Ban Zhao is asked to complete the Book of Han.
• c. AD 100: She petitions for Ban Chao’s return from Central Asia.
• AD 102: Deng Sui, her former pupil, becomes empress.
• AD 106: Empress Dowager Deng begins her regency, with Ban Zhao as an adviser.
• c. AD 117: Ban Zhao dies at about seventy.

Why it matters

Ban Zhao helped complete the history that defined Chinese historical writing and showed that a woman could hold a respected place in court scholarship. Her Lessons for Women, both influential and contested, remains central to debates about women in Chinese tradition.