In the early 20th century AD, Chinese women had little formal education, their marriages were arranged, and they were totally subordinate to their husbands. Upper class women were barred from the examinations through which their brothers gained official posts, but were often taught to write poetry or sing.

During the period of intellectual ferment that followed the May the Fourth student demonstrations in 1919, modernists attacked the patriarchal family and arranged marriages. In the 1920s, many young women began to struggle for equality, and tried to make their way as teachers, artists and political activists. Most were from the class of westernised intellectuals in cities like Shanghai.

The plight of peasant women was worse. In 1919, Mao Zedong wrote an article about a young woman who cut her throat before her arranged marriage; he condemned the 'darkness' of the social system which caused such things. In 1930, the Jiangxi Soviet passed a law forbidding arranged marriages, simplifying divorce and outlawing 'all purchase and sale in marriage contracts'. In the 1930s, many poor women still fled the villages, preferring work in terrible conditions in factories or mills. The Communists continued to promote equality for women, but reforms only began to affect the countryside in the 1950s, when arranged marriages began to die out.