Women in ChinaTraditionally, the family is the most important unit in Chinese society and this remains true until today. Over the past two years, new definitions of women's roles have been formed as many Chinese women have received higher education, joined the workforce, begun to compete with men, and become financially independent. Confucianism and the communist movement greatly influenced the role of women and family structure in China. Classical literature played a vital role in defining the family and classical women. The Book of Changes illustrates the role of women and the family throughout history. This book emphasizes a perfect society in which each person would wholeheartedly accept the roles assigned to them, devoting themselves to their responsibilities to others. Other literature glorifies and defines the ideal woman, emphasizing the main theme of submission. Throughout their lives, women were expected to follow the Three Submissions, which are: observe filial piety in childhood, submit to their husbands in marriage, and obey their sons in widowhood. With notable exceptions such as the old Empress Dowager, women in traditional China were largely deprived of public, and certainly political, roles. The position of women in traditional China was based on two considerations. First, there was the male bias, common to most societies, which insists that women's place is in the home and that their contribution is in all respects secondary to that of the home. male. The second factor comes from the structure of a society, which depends to a large extent on family and clan. In traditional China, a woman married away from home and moved into her husband's house, usually with her in-laws looking on. The function of marriage was essentially to maintain the male line on which the future depended, and a woman's status depended to a large extent on the sons she produced. If she failed in this duty, a primary wife could find herself supplemented by a concubine, in which there was no reason for the husband to refuse the younger favorite. On the other hand, the definition of the roles of women and the family changed radically during the communist movement. The idea of ​​communism was one of collectivism and equality. In this movement, religion was seen as a numbing agent that only raised false hopes; therefore, many old Confucian rituals and ideas were somewhat rejected and women became equal. The aim of the movement was to promote the participation of women in all aspects of social life..