Meaning: If beauty is her Yin, then intelligence is her Yang

Question

I've always assumed that the phrase "If X is her Yin, then Y is her Yang" meant two positive traits, X and Y, that were not extensions of each other, but rather opposites that complemented each other.

Upon looking up Wikipedia, I came to realize that while Yin and Yang are opposing forces, Yin is typically negative and Yang is positive(see note 1. below).

Is that right? Can I still use if to describe two opposing but positive traits, or is there a better phrase for it?

1. This is a Wikipedia entry on Yin & Yang.

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang, which are often shortened to "yin-yang" or "yin yang", are concepts used to describe how apparently opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary,[Note 1] interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, fire and water, life and death, male and female, sun and moon, and so on) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality of yin and yang. This duality lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine,[1] and a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang, taijiquan (t'ai chi), and qigong (Chi Kung), as well as in the pages of the I Ching.

Answer 1

Yin and Yang are opposing forces, yes, but their relationship is not like "up and down", in which one is positive and another is negative: they're simply two forces meant to balance each other without any connotation. Yin and Yang are more "food and beverage" (complementary to each other) and less "good and bad" (mutually exclusive).

So yes, you can use those to describe positive traits

Answer 2

Yin and Yang are not actually forces. In fact, they're not actually anything in and of themselves. the best explanation I can give is that they are the names given to the archetypal concept of opposites. Whatever is going to be called or considered Yang, its opposite must be Yin.

While it's true that certain classes of opposites have been traditionally assigned to one or the other of the 2 names by convention (such as Light, Day, Male, Active being considered Yang — and Dark, Night, Female, Passive or Resting considered Yin), this is always relative.

The English equivalent of Yang and Yin is Systole / Diastole (words which I believe were actually coined by Goethe), and which have been assigned by convention to the physiologic activity of the heart.

My sense about this sentence is that calling Beauty the Yin of Intelligence is actually saying that only ugly women are intelligent, and so in answer to the question

...Yin is typically negative and Yang is positive.... Is that right?

emphatically, yes, it is (by convention, only). also:

Can I still use it to describe two opposing but positive traits?

Yes, of course. That's poetic license.