Chinese characters: 05 (Characters with 女 nǚ radical)

 

The Chinese culture is traditionally male chauvinistic on the whole.  This is reflected in characters written with the woman 女 nǚ radical.

    * 妥 tuǒ is written with 爪 zhǎo,zhuǎ / claw over 女 nǚ / woman, and means “appropriate”.

    * 奴 nú / slave is made up of 又, which is the oracle bone script for 手 shǒu / [the right] hand.  Hand stretched out towards 女 nǚ / woman = slave.

    * 奸 jiān: 

(i) evil, wicked, villainous, crafty, false:  女 nǚ / woman and 干 gàn / to do —> a deed carried out by a woman = wicked / crafty; 

(ii) traitor, treacherous; 

(iii) adultery (but why only represented by a woman radical?!?  The blame obviously only falls on the woman.).

    * 奸 gān: offend, conflict

    * When a man marries a woman, the verb is 娶 qǔ (he takes her; 取 qǔ / to take and 女 nǚ / woman).  One of my teachers at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) said the kidnapping of a woman (as a bride) from a neighbouring village was still being enacted in the 70s in the New Territories (near Hong Kong) when he was doing his PhD research out there.  

    * A woman marrying a man is only 嫁 jià (女 nǚ / woman goes, presumably meekly, to her new 家 jiā / house, home, family).

My blogs are mainly for a laugh, not for making a political message.  This set of characters has been chosen for this purpose, so if you’ve got a brick in hand, put it away.  There are obviously loads more characters written with the 女 nǚ / woman radical that have good / positive meanings.