Re-examining the impact of the 1950 marriage law: State improvisation, local initiative and rural family change

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 161, 2000, Pages 171-197

  Diamant, Neil J ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

LEGISLATION; MARRIAGE; RURAL SOCIETY; SOCIAL CHANGE; STATE ROLE;

CHINA;

EID: 0034053485     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0305741000003982     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Yunnan Provincial Archives (YNA) 87-1-82 (1953), p. 47.
2. YNA 103-1-45 (1952), p. 149.
3. Challenging "conventional wisdom" is always a difficult task given that it is rarely chronicled in same way as an argument associated with a particular individual. My argument that there is a conventional wisdom concerning the law is based on conversations with junior and senior faculty whose research had nothing to do with the Marriage Law, women or even rural society. Most mentioned the works to be discussed below.
4. See, for instance, Ann Anagnost's recommendations for books and articles for courses dealing with gender in China. Her list includes many of the "classics" on Chinese women by Andors, Croll, Diamond, Honig, Johnson, Stacey and Wolf, but does not mention books by Meijeror Yang. On the subject of "Women and Revolution," she writes that "since the 1970s, a number of studies have used documentary evidence to evaluate the degree to which the Chinese revolution has fulfilled what Western feminists had always assumed to be its radical promise to women. These studies all focus on the issue of how patriarchal structures have been reproduced and even strengthened under socialism." Oddly, Anagnost does not criticize these works for their Western bias, although they took as their starting point "what Western feminists had always assumed" about the revolution. See her 'Transformation of gender in Modern China," in Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching (Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, 1989), pp. 313-342.
5. Margery Wolf, Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 25.
6. Judith Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 181.
7. See for instance, Ellen Judd's excellent study, Gender and Power in Rural North China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 167, 213;
8. Christina Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rofel and Tyrene White (eds.), Engendering China: Women, Culture and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), introduction.
9. Kay Anne Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983), pp. 115-17, 122-23.
10. Wolf, Revolution Postponed, p. 260.
11. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution, p. 224.
12. Ibid. p. 222.
13. Wolf, Revolution Postponed, pp. 20, 25.
14. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution, p. 222.
15. Wolf, Revolution Postponed, p. 164. According to Judith Stacey, during the Marriage Law campaign "cadres sympathetic to the men handed down decisions that denied divorce to women, at time ordering them to be more enslaved to their marital homes than they had been before they petitioned for release" (p. 181).
16. Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution, p. 181.
17. Wolf, Revolution Postponed, pp. 1-2. Other scholars of women have made similar arguments. Susan Mann, for example, argues that, "Weak ritual ties with her natal family and the unacceptability of a return to her natal home forced the bride into near-complete dependency on her husband's family." See "Widows in the kinship, class, and community structures of Qing Dynasty China," Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (February 1987), p. 44
18. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution, p. 125. Wolfs argument regarding the uterine family is in her Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972).
19. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution, p. 55-56.
20. Ibid. p. 115.
21. Wolf, Revolution Postponed, p. 19.
22. Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution, p. 126.
23. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Socialist Révolution, pp. 142, 145.
24. Ibid. pp. 147-48.
25. William L. Parish and Martin K. Whyte, Village and Family in Contemporary China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 159, 192.
26. Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter, Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 206
27. Edward Friedman, Paul Pickowicz, and Mark Seiden, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 122, 153, 179. Similar arguments have been made about south China. See Sulamith and Jack Potter, China's Peasants: The Anthropology of a Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 263.
28. There is now extensive literature on the relationship between state law and popular practice in the Qing (less so in the Republican period) thanks to the research of Philip C.C. Huang, Kathyrn Bernhardt and their students at the University of California, Los Angeles. See Philip Huang, Civil Justice in China: Representation and Practice in the Qing (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); Huang and Bernhardt (eds.), Civil Law in Qing and Republican China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994) and Kathryn Bernhardt, "Women and the law: divorce in Republican China," in the above volume.
29. Li Rong, "Hunyin shi bu shi 'geren sishi' " ("Are marriage problems personal and private matters?") Xinwen ribao, 23 November 1951.
30. See Mao's "Decree regarding marriage," in Stuart Schram (ed.), The Political Thought of Mao Tse-nmg (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 337.
31. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Socialist Revolution, p. 117.
32. Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution, p. 155.
33. See, for instance, Michel Oksenberg, "Local leaders in rural China, 1962-1965: individual attributes, bureaucratic positions and political recruitment," in A. Doak Bamett (ed.), Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 155-215.
34. In the Shanghai suburbs, for example, 388 out of 505 (76%) Party secretaries in 1952 only had a primary school education. Shanghai xianzhi (Shanghai County Gazetteer) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1993), pp. 254-56. In villages the level was probably lower. Many gazetteers do not include data on age. Oksenberg estimates that the average age of village officials between 1955 and 1957 was 26. See, "Local leaders," p. 181.
35. See Pransenjit Duara, Culture. Power and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), ch. 6.
36. Tong County Archives (TCA) 1-2-31, p. 5; TCA 7-1-3, p. 128; Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA) A71-2-1859, p. 43; SMA C32-1-4, p. 76; SMA A71-2-1864, p. 6; Qingpu County Archives (QPA) 11-2-1, p. 81.
37. QPA 11-2-1, p. 81.
38. Chuxiong Préfectoral Archives (CXA) 1 l-t-14B-l,p. 141;CXA 1 l-4-14B-l,p. 126.
39. CXA 11-11-14B-l,pp. 104-105.
40. QPA 48-2-31, p.84. QPA 48-2-56, pp. 113, 115.
41. SMA A71-2-1859, p. 96.
42. On the 100% divorce approval rate see CXA 4-4-A1, p. 38. On the 12-fold increase see CXA 16-3-A1, p. 184. Chongming county court granted divorces in 96% of cases. For Chongming see Chongming xianzhi (Chongming County Gazetteer) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 219; SMA C32-2-5, p. 5.
43. SMA C31-2-60, p. 7.
44. QPA 48-2-31, p. 93.
45. See for example CXA 4-4-A1, pp. 39-40.
46. SMA A71-2-1863, p. 10.
47. Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution, p. 186.
48. Beijing Municipal Archives (BMA) 84-3-21, p. 29.
49. BMA 84-3-21, p. 29.
50. Dongcheng District Archives (DCA) 1-1-194, p. 11.
51. DCA 1-1-194, p. 11-13.
52. DMA 84-3-21, p. 29.
53. DCA 1-1-194, p. 13.
54. See BMA 84-3-27, p. 7 (1955).
55. In Qingpu, for example, the campaigns to suppress opium trafficking and the Three Antis (targeting Party corruption) happened within a month of each other in 1951.
56. CXA 16-3-A1, pp. 18-20; CXA 16-15-B1, p. 137.
57. CXA 16-15-Bl,p. 138.
58. SMA A71-2-1859, p. 84.
59. BMA 84-1-32, p. 41.
60. TCA 7-1-4, pp. 108-109.
61. CXA4-l-Al,p. 27.
62. SMA A71-2-1861.
63. BMA 84-1-32, p. 41.
64. CXA4-2-A1.P- 80.
65. TCA 1-2-31, p. 14.
66. TCA 1-2-31, p. 10.
67. Yunnan wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui (Yunnan Province Historical Materials Committee), Yunnan minzu gongzuo Imiyilii, Vol. 1 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1993), p. 209
68. SMA A71-2-I859, p. 143.
69. Ibid. p. 55.
70. Ibid. p. 6.
71. SMA E81-2-117, p. 90.
72. See, for instance, QPA 48-1-13, pp. 101-102; QPA 58-2-51.
73. Songjiang County Archives 8-1-32, p. 32.
74. YNA 89-1-55, p. 37.
75. Given that this report was written by officials in Beijing and is critical of collectivization (and the Marriage Law), it is tempting to suggest that it was intended to criticize proponants of rapid collectivization, Unfortunately, I do not know the politics leading to its compilation and publication.
76. QPA 48-2-59 (1955), p. 78.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid. pp. 78-79.
79. Ibid. p. 81.
80. Li Yangxi and Tian Ye. "Hebei sheng nongcun minshi jiufen de diaocha" ("An investigation of rural civil disputes in Hebei provinces), Zliengfayanjiu (Legal Research) Vol. 4 (March 1957), p. 33.
81. Information on exactly how common this was is not available at the moment. However, I would suggest that the existance of special reports on the subject (which requires investigation and the allocation of scarce state resources) attests to a growing problem in the countryside.
82. CXA 16-65-B1 (September 1958), p. 171. Emphasis mine.
83. Ibid. p. 172.
84. Ibid.
85. See, for instance, Anhui sheng gaoji renmin fayuan (Anhui Province Supreme Court) (ed.). Shenpan jishi (A Chronicle of Judgements) (Anhui renmin chubanshe, 1959); Fei Yuke, "Luetan chuli nongcun diqu hunyin wenti de tihui" ("A brief discussion of how marriage problems in rural areas'are handled"), Zhengfa xuexi (Legal Studies), Vol. 5-6 (1958), pp. 56-58; Zhou Gu, "Lun hunyin fa banbu hou jinian lai chuli lihun anjian de yuanzi" ("Principles for how divorce cases should be handled several years after (he promulgation of the Marriage Law"), Zliengfa yanjiu. Vol. 5 (1956), pp. 42-45.
86. The literature on the PLA is vast, making full citation impossible. Representative works of this perspective are Ellis Joffe, Party and Army: Professionalism and Political Control in the Chinese Officer Corps (Cambridge, MA: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1965); Harlen Jencks, From Muskets to Missies: Politics and Professionalism in the Chinese Army, 1945-1981 (Boulder: Westview, 1982); Harry Harding, "The role of the military in Chinese politics," in Victor Falkenheim (ed.), Citizens and Groups in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1987), pp. 213-256.
87. CXA 16-27-AI,p. 30.
88. CXA 16-13-BI,p. 64.
89. CXA 16-12-B1, pp. 58-59.
90. CXA 11-77-14B-1.P- 22.
91. CXA 16-I3-Bl,p. 64.
92. Jiangsu Provincial Archives 35, p. 31.
93. CXA ll-77-14B-l,p. 23.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Jiangsu Provincial Archives 35, p. 31: CXA 16-13-B1, p. 61.
97. CXA 11-77-14B-1, p. 23.
98. CXA 11-87-14B-1, p. 272.
99. SMAC31-2-979, p. 88.
100. SMAC31-2-984, p. 92.
101. See my Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949-1968 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).