They say “women are made of water”, probably because women cry a lot. Researchers found that a woman would spend more than 12,000 hours (16 months) crying due to all kinds of reasons in her entire life. But today, we are not talking about tears. Let’s have a close look at of modern Chinese womanhood in a traditional angle --- Women that are like water.

Same like the rest of the world, men are always the core of Chinese society from the earliest time of history, and women were less recorded. For thousands of years, they were treated as the attachments of their husbands and their only roles were Mother, Wife, Daughter and Sister.

But as we can see, China’s rapid economic growth in recent decades has transformed the nation’s women.  They have become confident, independent and a major economic force. If you ever visited the country, you may easily find that most of the self-employed households are always ruled by the wives. They make decisions, deal with people and play in the challenging market place even better than their husbands. Of course, the gender inequality is still there, but Chinese women exist in all kinds of industries and they are advancing further into upper management than ever before.  But how these changes result in their womanhood and family life? With greater economic independence comes increased self-confidence and young Chinese women showing to aspire to higher personal and professional achievements.  While importance of their society roles keeps on increasing, some of them pay less attention to be a “good wife”, because they believe, “I can be very well even if I am alone”. It seems to be one of the reasons that divorce rate in China keeps on growing among young generation, especially newly married couples.

Chinese do believe that woman has the energy to help her husband to prosper in his career and business. In the theory of physiognomy, it says women with rounder face shape and fuller checks and nose are more likely to be the prospering wives. However, it is just an old fashioned saying and lack of evidence. Of course it’s not only these women with specific appearance could bring fortune and wealth to their husbands, every woman can do.

In traditional culture, we say women are made of water, because of the softness of their femininity. Coincidently, to Chinese man, we consider that wealth is created from Water (the element) in the theory of Chinese Five Elements (Metal, Earth, Fire, Wood, and Water).  The Water energy within a man’s body is limited, thus, his wife is there to complete him as one. A smart woman knows how to benefit her family simply by being like water. 

1.       Being gentle and soft

When two solid objects crash on each other in a hard way, it’s easy to cause permanent damage.  On the contrary, because of liquidity, water is able to flow over an obstruction softly without hurting anything.  A water-like woman would never get into a bad fight with her husband when he is furious. Because they know, to most of men, their anger will go away immediately if their wives start to play the women or acting cute and say some sweet words. Don’t try to win the argument, it only gets things worse. Clam him down first.  If something really serious happened, sit down and talk to him like two rational adults. Being soft and gentle doesn’t mean being weak. That’s why we say, “Willows are weak yet they bind other wood”. A water-like lady is always the one hold on power at home.

2.       Flow Down To the earth and moisten the living

No matter how powerful and tough a lady boss could be in the workplace, when she comes home she should always remember her role as a wife, which is the gentle, caring and lovely one among the two. A water-like lady never stands in a high position at home. They are happy to nourish the family by their sweetness just like water flows down to the earth and moisten all the living creatures.

If the lady is too bossy and trying to be the authority, by yelling and ordering on everything, it would break the balance in the relationship and hurt the husband’s male ego. It explains why many of the successful women failed their marriage. They are too good and too strong, and they tend to complain a lot and being judgmental of their husbands. Deep inside of every man’s heart, they care about their wife’s’ comments more than anyone else’s. Too many negative words could break husband’s self-confidence and result in poor working performance. A smart Chinese woman knows it is necessary to show her weakness and be helpless at times; it effectively improves husband’s sense of responsibility for the family. Almost all the men enjoy being the hero, as they are born to be protective, they need to be needed. Wife’s sweet words and appropriate compliments is the energy for their husbands’ well preforming.  

As we mentioned before, women are born as water and hold on the energy that gathers wealth and good fortune, which makes wife the most precious treasure to a man. If a man has put on all his effort in his career but nothing works out there, he should consider if his wife is really happy or not. A joyful wife has greater Water energy, thus man should always be a loving husband and cherish his wife; happiness and prosperity should come along as you earned it. First thing first, family wellness is the precondition of everything else. Without a harmony and loving family, a man can hardly make any big achievement in his career. That’s the reason we say “Behind every successful man, there is a woman”.