A Study Of The Bride Trafficking In The Qing Dynasty

Bride trafficking is the phenomenon of selling women by marriage,which has not attracted enough attention in the history academic circle.This paper studies the phenomenon by using Journal of the social and historical material of official Punishments in the Jia Qing period of the Qing Dynasty(清嘉庆朝刑科题本社会史料辑刊),Xingan Huilan sanbian(刑案汇览三编),The Selected Cases about Mourning Apparel in the Criminal Subject Files(清代“服制”命案——刑科题本档案选编),and The Case of the Refutation(驳案汇编).There are four types of people to do bride trafficking—the feudal government,the husband and his clan,the woman’s root family and others.The bride trafficking which were prohibited in the Qing dynasty laws and regulations are: renting wife or daughter as bride,forcing women to marry for money,seizing and selling as bride,wife selling,trafficking and selling as bride,pariah buying civilian women for bride.As a widow,her parents-in-law can legally sell her as a bride.When a woman and her lover are captured on the spot and the adulterer is killed by her husband,the government can sell the woman as a bride.A woman will be legally sold as a bride by her husband when she wants to leave her husband without permission and she commits adultery with others.According to the case study,it was legalized in the Qing Dynasty that the bride trafficking are made by presiding over wedding ceremony in root family and the concubine bride trafficking are made by her husband.From the law,bride trafficking is not only illegal and criminal action,but also a punishment that can be used to punish criminal women.From the state of marriage,bride trafficking is not only a form of marriage,but also a way to end the state of marriage.From the population sales,it is serious that some people get bride trafficking by grabbing and decoying.In addition,the victimized woman are vulnerable to repeat being trafficked as a bride.This has brought instability to the Qing society.The economic reason is the main reason for the occurrence of most of the bride trafficking in the Qing dynasty.There are profit-oriented economic orientations for bride trafficking by grabbing and decoying and forcing women to marry for money,the reason of which is that poverty are more likely to be a self-help strategy in bottom-level people who are in embarrassing situation.Apart from the economic reason,there are still some social reasons for the phenomenon of bride trafficking in the Qing Dynasty,such as family invulnerability,clan disputes,and so on.The laws of the Qing Dynasty were relatively light in sentence for women who are adultery,which also made the phenomenon of bride trafficking women who are adultery more serious.The legal status of women in the Qing Dynasty is not static.Judging from the phenomenon of bride trafficking,the legal status of women in the Qing Dynasty is a dynamic process that changes with identity and chastity.Women’s status in the family has been improved with the conclusion of marriage,and women’s right of personal control and choice of marriage are tightly bound together with the chastity.