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Author: Meijer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004482881
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 147
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Book Description
In this publication the development is traced of two sections of the chapter on "Homicide" of the penal code of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), Murder and Homicide of an Adulterer. The former deals with premeditated homicide where there is no difference in status, social or family relations between murderer and victim, while in the latter we find the husband who kills his wife and her paramour when caught in the act. In that case, the husband was immune from prosecution, provided that he commited the act at the time and at the site. The first section developed in a clear and intelligent way, with in general some logical provisions being added from the beginning till the end of the dynasty. The second section, however, was enriched by 34 additional articles through legislation and judicial practice, which with a view to promoting moral purity in society, gradually circumvented the original restrictions to the husband's fury. Consequently, by accentuating the husband's important status and for the sake of maintaining the established hierarchy in society, that section changed into a bad and cruel part of the law, turning the husband's behaviour from an excusable exception into morally justified conduct, and likewise the woman's misbehaviour into a mortal sin. This has all been confirmed by the motivation of the legislation and sentences of the cases.
Author: Meijer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004482881
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 147
Get Book Here
Book Description
In this publication the development is traced of two sections of the chapter on "Homicide" of the penal code of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), Murder and Homicide of an Adulterer. The former deals with premeditated homicide where there is no difference in status, social or family relations between murderer and victim, while in the latter we find the husband who kills his wife and her paramour when caught in the act. In that case, the husband was immune from prosecution, provided that he commited the act at the time and at the site. The first section developed in a clear and intelligent way, with in general some logical provisions being added from the beginning till the end of the dynasty. The second section, however, was enriched by 34 additional articles through legislation and judicial practice, which with a view to promoting moral purity in society, gradually circumvented the original restrictions to the husband's fury. Consequently, by accentuating the husband's important status and for the sake of maintaining the established hierarchy in society, that section changed into a bad and cruel part of the law, turning the husband's behaviour from an excusable exception into morally justified conduct, and likewise the woman's misbehaviour into a mortal sin. This has all been confirmed by the motivation of the legislation and sentences of the cases.
Author: Matthew Harvey Sommer
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804745595
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 868
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Book Description
This study of the regulation of sexuality in the Qing dynasty explores the social context for sexual behavior criminalized by the state, showing how regulation shifted away from status to a new regime of gender that mandated a uniform standard of sexual morality and criminal liability for all people, regardless of their social status.
Author: Hsieh Bao Hua
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739145169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397
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Book Description
In the long course of late imperial Chinese history, servants and concubines formed a vast social stratum in the hinterland along the Grand Canal, particularly in urban areas. Concubinage and Servitude in Late Imperial China is a survey of the institutions and practice of concubinage and servitude in both the general populace and the imperial palace, with a focus on the examination of Ming-Qing political and socioeconomic history through the lives of this particular group of distinct yet associated individuals. The persistent theme of the book is how concubines, appointed by patriarchal polygamy, and servants, laboring under the master-servants hierarchy, experienced interactions and mobility within each institution and in associating with the other. While reviewing how ritual and law treated concubines and servants as patriarchal possessions, the author explores the perspectives available for individualconcubines and servants and the limitations in their daily circumstances, searching for their “positional powers” and “privilege of the inferiors” in the context of Chinese culture during the Ming-Qing time period. For a list of the book's tables and their sources, please see: http://www.wou.edu/wp/hsiehb/
Author: Janet Theiss
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520930667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
Looking beyond the familiar trappings of the cult of female chastity—such as hagiographies of widows and chastity shrines--in late imperial China, this book explores the cult's political significance and practical ramifications in everyday life during the eighteenth century. In the first full-length study of the subject, Janet Theiss examines a vast number of laws, legal cases, regulations, and policies to illustrate the social and political processes through which female virtue was defined, enforced, and contested. Along the way, she provides rich details of social life and cultural practices among ordinary Chinese people through narratives of criminal cases of sexual assault, harassment, adultery, and domestic violence.
Author: Paul R. Goldin
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824824822
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
The subject of sex was central to early Chinese thought. Discussed openly and seriously as a fundamental topic of human speculation, it was an important source of imagery and terminology that informed the classical Chinese conception of social and political relationships. This sophisticated and long-standing tradition, however, has been all but neglected by modern historians. In The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, Paul Rakita Goldin addresses central issues in the history of Chinese attitudes toward sex and gender from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400. A survey of major pre-imperial sources, including some of the most revered and influential texts in the Chinese tradition, reveals the use of the image of copulation as a metaphor for various human relations, such as those between a worshiper and his or her deity or a ruler and his subjects. In his examination of early Confucian views of women, Goldin notes that, while contradictions and ambiguities existed in the articulation of these views, women were nevertheless regarded as full participants in the Confucian project of self-transformation. He goes on to show how assumptions concerning the relationship of sexual behavior to political activity (assumptions reinforced by the habitual use of various literary tropes discussed earlier in the book) led to increasing attempts to regulate sexual behavior throughout the Han dynasty. Following the fall of the Han, this ideology was rejected by the aristocracy, who continually resisted claims of sovereignty made by impotent emperors in a succession of short-lived dynasties. Erudite and immensely entertaining, this study of intellectual conceptions of sex and sexuality in China will be welcomed by students and scholars of early China and by those with an interest in the comparative development of ancient cultures.
Author: Marinus Johan Meijer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 156
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Book Description
In this publication the development is traced of two sections of the chapter on "Homicide" of the penal code of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), Murder and Homicide of an Adulterer. The former deals with premeditated homicide where there is no difference in status, social or family relations between murderer and victim, while in the latter we find the husband who kills his wife and her paramour when caught in the act. In that case, the husband was immune from prosecution, provided that he commited the act at the time and at the site. The first section developed in a clear and intelligent way, with in general some logical provisions being added from the beginning till the end of the dynasty. The second section, however, was enriched by 34 additional articles through legislation and judicial practice, which with a view to promoting moral purity in society, gradually circumvented the original restrictions to the husband's fury. Consequently, by accentuating the husband's important status and for the sake of maintaining the established hierarchy in society, that section changed into a bad and cruel part of the law, turning the husband's behaviour from an excusable exception into morally justified conduct, and likewise the woman's misbehaviour into a mortal sin. This has all been confirmed by the motivation of the legislation and sentences of the cases.
Author: Harriet Zurndorfer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004490167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
The present volume is the result of a Leiden University workshop on women in imperial China by a group of international scholars. In recent years Chinese women and gender studies have attracted more and more attention, and this book is one of the first efforts to focus on major aspects of this subject. It covers a wide range of topics and disciplines, including bibliography, demography, history, legal studies, literature, history of medicine, and philosophy. Chinese Women in the Imperial Past can rightly be seen as connected with the new Brill journal NAN NÜ, Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China, which was founded to provide the scholarly community with a lasting forum in which the subject of Chinese women and gender can be dealt with in its own right.
Author: Robert E. Hegel
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800151
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
The little-examined genre of legal case narratives is represented in this fascinating volume, the first collection translated into English of criminal cases - most involving homicide - from late imperial China. These true stories of crimes of passion, family conflict, neighborhood feuds, gang violence, and sedition are a treasure trove of information about social relations and legal procedure. Each narrative describes circumstances leading up to a crime and its discovery, the appearance of the crime scene and the body, the apparent cause of death, speculation about motives and premeditation, and whether self-defense was involved. Detailed testimony is included from the accused and from witnesses, family members, and neighbors, as well as summaries and opinions from local magistrates, their coroners, and other officials higher up the chain of judicial review. Officials explain which law in the Qing dynasty legal code was violated, which corresponding punishment was appropriate, and whether the sentence was eligible for reduction. These records began as reports from magistrates on homicide cases within their jurisdiction that were required by law to be tried first at the county level, then reviewed by judicial officials at the prefectural, provincial, and national levels, with each administrator adding his own observations to the file. Each case was decided finally in Beijing, in the name of the emperor if not by the monarch himself, before sentences could be carried out and the records permanently filed. All of the cases translated here are from the Qing imperial copies, most of which are now housed in the First Historical Archives, Beijing.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004423621
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 633
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Book Description
The essays in Powerful Arguments reconstruct the standards of validity underlying argumentative practices in a wide array of late imperial Chinese discourses, from the Song through the Qing dynasties. The fourteen case studies analyze concrete arguments defended or contested in areas ranging from historiography, philosophy, law, and religion to natural studies, literature, and the civil examination system. By examining uses of evidence, habits of inference, and the criteria by which some arguments were judged to be more persuasive than others, the contributions recreate distinct cultures of reasoning. Together, they lay the foundations for a history of argumentative practice in one of the richest scholarly traditions outside of Europe and add a chapter to the as yet elusive global history of rationality.
Author: Robert E. Hegel
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295997540
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
In this fascinating, multidisciplinary volume, scholars of Chinese history, law, literature, and religions explore the intersections of legal practice with writing in many different social contexts. They consider the overlapping concerns of legal culture and the arts of crafting persuasive texts in a range of documents including crime reports, legislation, novels, prayers, and law suits. Their focus is the late Ming and Qing periods (c. 1550-1911); their documents range from plaints filed at the local level by commoners, through various texts produced by the well-to-do, to the legal opinions penned by China's emperors. Writing and Law in Late Imperial China explores works of crime-case fiction, judicial handbooks for magistrates and legal secretaries, popular attitudes toward clergy and merchants as reflected in legal plaints, and the belief in a parallel, otherworldly judicial system that supports earthly justice.
