Halfway through my leisure-time reading of Daughter of
Fortune, a New York Times best seller by the Chilean novelist Isabel
Allende, a plain sentence caught my fancy: “Where there are women, there is
civilization.”（“哪裏有女人，哪裏就有文明。”）
The author did not give any more elaboration than it is, but the words lingered
in the back of my head and kept me pondering at the connotation.......Well, I
have to say it in a way does make sense, except its subtle feminist implication
might suggest a little uneasiness for man’s ego, since the latter is
conventionally considered the dominant gender in human’s history of
civilization.
Archaeologists believe that women have invented ever since
the very dawn of civilization, and civilization is possible only because women
invented the basic of clothing, housekeeping, and agriculture, albeit only a few
woman’s name are enshrined in the hall of fame in the modern science and
technology. Yet, as the old saying goes, behind every great man is an even
greater woman.
In Bible, the chapter of Genesis, it says God created Adam
from the earth and gave him life by blowing an air into him. Later on, God made
Eve by using Adam’s rib. This biblical episode symbolically marks the very birth
of human’s life. However, the quintessential history of human civilization began
when Eve, temped by the serpent, ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and then passed on the fruit to Adam. Consequently,
both Adam and Eve were expelled by God from the Garden of Eden. They had
children who eventually populated the whole world.
The incident of eating forbidden fruit, triggered by the
very first woman in human history and made both Adam and Eve aware of their
nakedness, signified the awakening of mankind’s most primitive
self-consciousness about disobedience, shame, disgrace, ignominy, and thereby
came the realization of the other sides of morality - nobility, dignity,
integrity and self-esteem. Related, the aesthetic concepts, such as beauty and
ugliness, also began to conceive. That was when Adam and Eve put their clothes
on to cover their body. Needless to say, the human’s quest for the meanings in
both morality and esthetics is the driving force in the long history of human
cultures across the world’s civilizations.
In daily life, women seem more civilized and cultured than
men. They never go to a party without dressing up from head to toe; they don't
come out the bedroom before they put makeup on; they pay close attention to the
etiquettes at the dinning table; they have the deepest love for delicate things
and down to every single details; they have certain way to walk, to talk, to
sit, and to dress; even a smile, in the circumstance of the ancient Chinese
society, had to follow certain social protocol: smile without showing teeth (笑不露齒).
Opposite to men's indifference and apathy, women are
sensitive to the vicissitude of seasons. They celebrate the season of spring
with their colorful attires; they rejoice the course of summer with flowers;
they sigh with emotion when the first foliage signals the coming of autumn; and
even during the bitter cold winter, they’d optimistically look forward to spring
by chanting the classical British poet Shelley, "If winter comes, can spring be
far behind?" (“冬天已經來了，春天還會遠嗎？”) No doubt, women, typified with a wide range of
sensations, are always the fundamental inspirations for various artistic
creations.
Comparing to men, women are more sentimental and emotionally
refined, so much so even a fallen leaf could bring them to tears and a transient
cloud in the sky could inflict their poignant feeling that they heave a sigh at,
as incarnated by the depiction of Lin Daiyu in the Chinese classic, Dream of The
Red Chamber. Sophisticated in human’s most delicate sentiments, women love
flowers, sunshine, music, literatures, fine arts. They enjoy the beauty of all
kinds, and pay their deepest sympathy to the passing of every single life.
Oh, fashion. Fashion, literally a synonym of woman, is
always a big thing for them and you can’t talk about women without touching on
fashion. In that regard, women represent grace, elegance, delicacy, beauty,
style, class - anything fine under the sun, you name it!
All right, I’d better call it quits before carry it too far.
Just one thing, though: wish to share this epigram with all the women, and men
too, on this planet, “Where there are women, there is civilization.”
（“哪裏有女人，哪裏就有文明。”）
Disclaimer: The post is
just a whimsical thought inspired from my reading, neither intend to be
politically-correct, nor intellectually justified.
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