BUILDING THE NATION THROUGH WOMEN'S HEALTH: MODERN ...

therefore they had less life- and strength-giving blood, making them naturally weaker. Dikötter
illustrates how this literature influenced Chinese scientific and popular writing in the Republican
era. According to Gu Shi,
“…The body of man has been shaped for movement, whereas that of woman is
made for reproduction. Man is dominated by action, woman by patience. Man
has a tendency to go to extremes: he can become a genius, a psychotic or a moron.
Women are generally more constant and are not subject to extreme changes.
These are due to the structural differences which exist between male and
female.” 529
Not only was biology held responsible for gender differences, but it was also the
basis for social proscriptions. There was a widely held belief in telegony in China,
brought from Europe and the United States, that a woman’s previous sexual partners
could affect her offspring with later partners. The semen was believed to remain in the
woman’s bloodstream and reappear again during pregnancy. Therefore, in order to
improve the race or prevent racial degeneration, women should most certainly be virgins
upon marriage because, after all, one could never know the true characteristics of a
woman’s previous lovers, or even whether a potential wife was being honest about her
prior sexual experiences.
Scientific models of evolution and eugenics disrupted the Chinese public’s views of
society. As Dikötter states, “Human biology replaced Confucian philosophy as the
epistemological foundation for social order.” 530 Evolutionary theories proposed infinite progress
instead of the cyclical rise and fall of dynasties or the changing of the seasons. Widespread
529 Gu Shi, Rensheng Erbainian (Man May Live Two Hundred Years), 1st edition 1916 (Shanghai: Shangwu
yinshuguan, 1929), as quoted in Dikötter, Sex, Culture and Modernity in China, 38-39.
530 Dikötter, Sex, Culture and Modernity in China, 9.
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