Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-89wxm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T07:23:10.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pursuing Rights and Getting Justice on China's Ethnic Frontier, 1949–1966

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Neil J. Diamant
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explains how minority women in rural China managed to use state legal and political institutions to obtain a divorce, despite numerous obstacles. Beginning with a legal controversy over why women from the Yi minority were going to court for “fun” and then divorcing their husbands, I proceed to look at the many factors that may have contributed to divorce in rural China, such as state ethnic policy, generational empowerment, culture, and the role of community in mediation and collective action. While such factors were influential, I argue that women's divorce in Yunnan was largely the result of a particular, time-bound confluence of revolutionary political forces that were unique to China, and not the direct product of the law or ethnic culture and status.

Type
Papers of General Interest
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , 2001 , pp. 799 - 840
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This article was prepared while I was a post-doctoral fellow at the University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh. Funding for my fieldwork was provided by the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China (CSCPRC). I am grateful to both of these institutions for their support. I am very grateful to Frank Upham, Mark Frazier, Stevan Harrell, Elizabeth Perry, Joseph Esherick, and the two anonymous reviewers for the Law & Society Review for providing me with very helpful suggestions.

References

References

Archive Abbreviations..Google Scholar
Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA)..Google Scholar
Yunnan Provincial Archives (YNA)..Google Scholar
Chuxiong Prefectural Archives (CXA)..Google Scholar
Songjiang County Archives (SJA)..Google Scholar
Xuhui District Archives (XHA)..Google Scholar
Dongcheng District Archives (DCA)..Google Scholar
Jing'an District Archives (JAA)..Google Scholar
Qingpu County Archives (QPA)..Google Scholar

Gazetteers

An xian zhi (1991), Chengdu: Bashu Publishers.Google Scholar
Chuxiong Yizu zizhizhou zhi (1993), vols.l & 2, Beijing: Renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar

Secondary Sources

Bamo, Qubu ed. (1992) Yizu Fengsu Zhi (Yi Customs). Beijing: Zhongyang Minzu Xueyuan Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Barnett, A. Doak (1985) China on the Eve of Communist Takeover. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, Lynn (1983) Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters: Social and Symbolic Roles of High Caste Women in Nepal. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, Kathryn (1994) “Women and the Law: Divorce in Republican China,” in Bernhardt, K. and Huang, P. C. C., eds., Civil Law in Qing and Republican China. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernhardt, Kathryn (1999) Women and Property in China, 1960–1949. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, Kathryn, and Huang, Philip C. C. (1994) Civil Law in Qing and Republican China. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, Fred W. (1900) “Journeys in the Chinese Shan States,” 15 Geographical J. 486–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Chi Jen (1956) “The Minority Groups of Yunnan and Chinese Political Expansion into Southwest China,” Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Michigan.Google Scholar
Chou, Tse-tsung (1960) The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Samuel R. (n.d.) Among the Tribes in South-West China. London: Morgan & Scott.Google Scholar
Comaroff, John (1994) The Discourse of Rights in Colonial South Africa: Subjectivity, Sovereignty, Modernity. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
Cressey, George B. (1955) Land of the Five Hundred Million. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Cresswell, Stephen (1991) Mormons and Cowboys, Moonshiners and Klansmen: Federal Law Enforcement in the South and West, 1870–1893. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Czap, Peter Jr. (1967) “Peasant Class Courts and Peasant Customary Justice in Russia, 1861–1912,” 1 J. of Social History 149–78.Google Scholar
Diamant, Neil J. (2000a) Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949–1968. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamant, Neil J. (2000b) “Conflict and Conflict Resolution in China: Beyond Mediation-Centered Approaches,” 44 J. of Conflict Resolution 523–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamant, Neil J. (2001) “Making Love ‘Legible’ in China: State and Society during the Enforcement of Civil Marriage Registration, 1950–1966,” 29 Politics & Society 447–80.Google Scholar
Duan, Zhengqun (1993a) “Women jiejuele Mansao, Maoqin, Manyanghan san zhai de shuili jiufen,” (We resolved the water rights dispute among the Mansao, Maoqin, and Manyanghan), in Yunnan wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui (Yunnan Province Historical Materials Committee), Yunnan minzu gongzuo huiyilu, vol.1 (Memoirs of Work Among Minorities in Yunnan). Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Duan, Zhengqun (1993b) “Zai Nanqiao shan qu tiaojie minzu jiufen,” (Mediating ethnic disputes in the Nanqiao mountain district) in Yunnan minzu gongzuo huiyilu, Vol. 1. Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Engel, David (1978) Code and Custom in a Thai Provincial Court: The Interaction of Formal and Informal Systems of Justice. Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Engelstein, Laura (1992) The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Modern in Fin-de Siécle Russia. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Epp, Charles R. (1998) The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Escobar, Arturo (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Farnsworth, Beatrice (1985) “Village Women Experience the Revolution,” in Gleason, A., Kenez, P., & Stites, R., eds., Bolshevik Culture. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Farnsworth, Beatrice (1986) “The Litigious Daughter-in-Law: Family Relations in Rural Russia in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,” 45 Slavic Rev. 49–64.Google Scholar
Fei, Chengkang (1997) Zhongguo de jiafa zugui. Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe.Google Scholar
Fei, Hsiao-tung, & Chih-I, Chang (1945) Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Felstiner, William (1974) “Influences of Social Organization on Dispute Processing,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 63–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, Joseph (1977) The Local Histories of Yunnan. China Society Occasional Papers #19.Google Scholar
Friedman, Edward, Pickowicz, Paul, & Seiden, Mark (1991) Chinese Village, Socialist State. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc (1989) Law and Society in Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gao, Fayuan, ed. (1990) Zhongguo Xinan Shaoshuminzu Daode Yanjiu (Research on morals among China's Southwestern minority groups). Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Goodman, David (1986) Centre and Province in the PRC: Sichuan and Guizhou, 1955–1965. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Haberer, Thomas (1987) “Ethnic Minorities and Cultural Identity in the PRC, with Special Reference to the Yi Nationality” in his Ethnic Minorities in China: Traditions and Transformations. Aachen: Edition Herodot.Google Scholar
Haley, John O. (1978) “The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant,” 4 J. of Japanese Studies 359–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrell, Stevan, ed. (1995) Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Herman, John (1997) “Empire in the Southwest: Early Qing Reforms to the Native Chieftain System,” 56 J. of Asian Studies 47–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, Enid (1979) Mahkama! Studies in the Egyptian Legal System. London: Ithaca Press.Google Scholar
Honig, Emily, & Hershatter, Gail (1988) Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hosie, Alexander (1897) Three Years in Western China: A Narrative of Three Journeys in Ssu-ch'uan, Kuei-chow, and Yun-nan. London: George Philip & Son.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip C. C. (1996) Civil Justice in China: Representation and Practice in the Qing. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Kay Ann (1983) Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judd, Ellen R. (1989) “Niangjia: Chinese Women and their Natal Families,” 48 J. of Asian Studies 525–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Philip (1980) Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1769–1864. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lazarus-Black, Mindie, & Hirsch, Susan F., eds. (1994) Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lee, James (1982) “Food Supply and Population Growth in Southwest China, 1250–1850,” 41 J. of Asian Studies 711–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, Sing, & Kleinman, Arthur (2000) “Suicide as Resistance in Chinese Society,” in Perry, E. J. & Seiden, M., eds., Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance. London & New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Moshe, Lewin (1968) Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. trans. by Nove, Irene. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Li, Rong (1951) “Hunyin shi bu shi ‘geren sishi”‘ (Are marriage problems personal and private matters?) Xinwen Ribao. Shanghai.Google Scholar
Lü, Xiaobo, & Perry, Elizabeth J., eds. (1997) Danwei: The Chinese Work Unit in Historical and Comparative Perspective. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Macauley, Melissa (1994) “Civil and Uncivil Disputes in Southeastern Coastal China, 1723–1820,” in Bernhardt, K. & Huang, C. C., eds., Civil Law in Qing and Republican China. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catherine A. (1993) “Reflections on Law in the Everyday Life of Women,” in Sarat, A. and Kearns, T. R., eds., Law in Everyday Life. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Madsen, Bernice (1977) “Social Services for Women: Problems and Priorities,” in Atkinson, D., Dallin, A., & Lapidus, G., eds., Women in Russia. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Massell, Gregory (1968) “Law as an Instrument of Revolutionary Change in a Traditional Milieu: The Case of Soviet Central Asia,” 2 Law & Society Rev. 179–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, Doug (1982) The Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael W. (1994) Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael W. (1998) “Law and Political Struggles for Social Change: Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Promises in Future Research,” in Schultz, D. A., ed., Leveraging the Law: Using the Courts to Achieve Social Change. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
McCarthey, J. (1879) “Across China from Chin-kiang to Bhamo, 1877,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 1, no. 8:489–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCord, Edward (1990) “Local Military Power and Elite Formation: The Liu Family of Xingyi County, Guizhou,” in Esherick, J. & Rankin, M. B., eds., Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Meijer, Marius J. (1971) Marriage Law and Policy in the Chinese People's Republic. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Migdal, Joel (1988) Strong Societies and Weak States. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Erin (1998) Gender, Law, and Resistance in India. Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Molly (1993) “India's Anti-Liquor Women Start a Social Revolution,” International Herald Tribune, December 20, 1.Google Scholar
Osgood, Cornelius (1963) Village Life in Old China: A Community Study of Kao Yao, Yunnan. New York: Ronald Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth (1980) Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845–1945. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth (1993) Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Philips, Roderick (1980) Family Breakdown in Late 18th Century France: Divorces in Rouen, 1792–1803. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. L. (1940) “Soil and Man in Western China,” 12 J. of the West China Border Research Society 102–33.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Some Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Segalen, Martine (1983) Love and Power in the Peasant Family: Rural France in the Nineteenth Century, Sarah Matthews, trans. Oxford & Chicago: Basil Blackwell & Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Shi, Di (1992) Shenhua yu Fazhi: Xinnan Minzu Fawenhua Yanjiu (Mythology and Legality: Research on Legal Cultures in Southwest China). Kunming: Yunnan jiaoyu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William (1951) “Aftermath of Communist Liberation in the Chengtu Plain,” 24 Pacific Affairs 61–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Robert J. (1981) “Japanese Village Women: Suye-mura, 1934–1936,” 7 J. of Japanese Studies 259–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy (1977) Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Sommer, Matthew (2000) Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Stacey, Judith (1983) Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Starr, June (1989) “The Role of Turkish Secular Law in Changing the Lives of Rural Muslim Women, 1950–1970,” 23 Law & Society Rev. 497–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1994) Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.Google Scholar
Traer, James (1980) Marriage and the Family in Fighteenth-Century France. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Upham, Frank K. (1987) Law and Social Change in Postwar Japan. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Upham, Frank K. (1998) “Weak Legal Consciousness as Invented Tradition,” in Vlastos, S., ed., Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan. Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
n.a. (1908) “The Tribes of North-Western Se-chuan,” 32 Geographical Journal 594–97.Google Scholar
Vassal, Gabrielle M. (1922) In and Round Yunnan Fou. London: William Heinemann.Google Scholar
Wall, James, & Blum, Michael (1991) “Community Mediation in the People's Republic of China,” 35 J. of Conflict Resolution 3–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Lianfang (1989) Yunnan minzu gongzuo shijian yu lilun tansuo (Explorations on the theory and practice of minority work in Yunnan). Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe.Google Scholar
Wang, Lianfang (1993) Minzu wenti lunwenji (A Treatise on minority problems). Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Wolf, Margery (1975) “Women and Suicide in China,” in Wolf, M. & Witke, R., eds., Women in Chinese Society. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Margery (1985) Revolution Postponed: Women In Contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, Anqi (1994) “Zhongguo lihun zhuangtai, tedian ji qushi (The situation, special characteristics, and trends of divorce in China), 18 Xueshu Jikan (Academic Quarterly) 156–65.Google Scholar
Young, Crawford (1994) The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Yunnan wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui (Yunnan Province Historical Materials Committee) (1993) Yunnan minzu gongzuo huiyilu, vol.1 (Memoirs of Work Among Minorities in Yunnan). Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhongguo renkou–Shandong fence. (1990). Beijing: Zhongguo tongjijingji chubanshe.Google Scholar

Statute Cited

The Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, 1950. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar