Women and Property in China: 960-1949

Author: Kathryn Bernhardt ()
Author Country: China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: The property rights of Chinese women from the Song to the Qing dynasties underwent many significant changes, and these changes became particularly profound after the civil law reforms in the 20th century under the Republic of China. This book is a specialized study of the property rights of Chinese women.
Excerpt: The inheritance rights of widows from the Song to the Qing dynasties, apart from being daughters, were most often related to property as widows. After the Song dynasty, the property rights of widows underwent very complex historical changes. One major change came with the implementation of compulsory male-line adoption of nephews in the early Ming dynasty. The second change was driven by the concept of the "chaste widow" within the legal framework of compulsory male-line adoption, a change that was completed in the mid-Qing legal reforms, which allowed widows to refuse succession to those they disliked. To understand the dynamic changes within the scope of adoption, the best reference is Shizuka Hidehiko's work, as his academic research has been so dominant in the study of family law in later imperial China. The core of his analysis of widows' property rights is his concept of "marital unity," which he defines as the merging of a wife's personality into her husband's during his lifetime, and if the husband dies, her personality represents his (1978: 119-120). According to the logic of this concept, a childless widow's rights to her husband's property are only guardianship in nature: that is, to maintain the integrity of her husband's property on behalf of his deceased husband, in order to pass it on to the future adopted heir. For the same reason, as his representative, she has the greatest power to choose an adopted heir for her deceased husband. Shizuka believed these were inviolable principles in the law and social customs from the Song to the Qing dynasties.