By Matthew H. Sommer
This research of the legislation of sexuality within the Qing dynasty explores the social context for sexual habit criminalized by means of the kingdom, arguing that the eighteenth century in China was once a time of profound swap in sexual concerns. in this time, the elemental organizing precept for nation law of sexuality shifted clear of prestige, lower than which participants of other teams had lengthy been held to specified criteria of familial and sexual morality. instead, a brand new regime of gender mandated a uniform common of sexual morality and felony legal responsibility throughout prestige boundaries—all humans have been anticipated to comply to gender roles outlined when it comes to marriage.This shift within the rules of sexuality, manifested in professional therapy of fees of adultery, rape, sodomy, widow chastity, and prostitution, represented the imperial state’s efforts to deal with demanding social and demographic adjustments. Anachronistic prestige different types have been discarded to house a extra fluid social constitution, and the country initiated new efforts to implement inflexible gender roles and hence to shore up the peasant kinfolk opposed to a swelling underclass of unmarried, rogue men outdoor the relations procedure. those males have been demonized as sexual predators who threatened the chaste other halves and daughters (and the younger sons) of good families, and a flood of latest laws detailed them for suppression.In addition to featuring reliable and judicial activities concerning sexuality, the booklet tells the tale of individuals excluded from authorised styles of marriage and family who bonded with one another in unorthodox methods (combining sexual union with source pooling and fictive kinship) to meet a number of human wishes. This formerly invisible measurement of Qing social perform is introduced into sharp concentration via the testimony, gleaned from neighborhood and important courtroom records, of such marginalized humans as peasants, employees, and beggars.
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Additional resources for Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Law, Society, and Culture in China)
Sample text
The late imperial era offers a number of notorious examples. The A Vision of Sexual Order 33 White Lotus sects that staged several major uprisings worshiped a female deity and often were led by women; some congregations encouraged free sexual relations among their members (Naquin I976). In the mid-nineteenth century, the Taiping rebels (whose crusade to found a "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace" cost 20 to 30 million lives) banned foot binding, prostitution, and polygyny, divided families into separate military units segregated by sex, forswore all sexual intercourse until final victory, promoted women to leadership roles, and (according to some accounts) opened their heterodox civil service examinations to female candidates.
Eventually, such men-for whom "liberation" meant wives and farms of their own-would playa major role in the Red Army and in violent land reform. But the problem of a dangerous underclass of surplus males was already evident in the eighteenth century. 18 The demography of premodern China is notoriously difficult; we Introduction I3 simply do not have precise population figures before the Communist era, except for isolated examples. But there is consensus on a few basics. Between 1700 and 1850 the empire's population roughly tripled, from about 150 million to about 430 million, while cultivated acreage only doubled (Ho 1959; Perkins 1969).
Ba County centered on the city of Chongqing (Chungl