The Position And Rights Of Women During The Ming And Qing As Seen In The Huizhou Documents

Discovered in Huizhou (situated in modern Anhui Province,Jiangxi Province) during the 1950s,the Huizhou Documents consist of a host of governmental documents and private contracts. They form the most important collection of legal documents for the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties in China,and have the potential to play a key role in broadening the horizons of research on the social,economic,legal,and cultural history of late imperial China on the basis of primary sources.Chapter One:Retrospectives of the Study on in Chinese Female history and Value of HuizhouDocuments.Critical review of scholarship from China,Japan and Europe and America related to the study ofwomen's history. The link between Huizhou documents and women and gender's studies,thesedocuments are most helpful to understanding the rights and status of women.Chapter Two:The Position and Rights of Women as Seen in Land Transactions.As a mother,a widow could sell the land in her name or her son's name,but they could not purchasethe land in her name. Because merchants were often away on business for a long time,in Huizhouprefecture their wives had to manage the family affairs,including the sale of her husband's familyproperty.Chapter Three:The Position and Rights of Women as Seen in Contracts about Succession. The principle of equal division of family property among male offspring may be considered one of the most important characteristics of traditional Chinese society. However,daughters too had some rights to a dowry from her natal family when she married. Widows could inherit their deceased husbands' property. They also played an important role in the ritual/lineal succession.Chapter Four:The Position of Women as seen in the documents of sale and purchase of slaves and the documents of uxorilocal marriage of hereditary bond servants. The zhuangpu(tenant/servant) system prevailed in Huizhou prefecture during the Ming-Qing period. As hereditary bond servants,these slaves and tenants were bound to particular master for generations,while their status was regarded as inferior to their masters. The masters might sell slave-girls to others,or use a slave in the master's family as his slave-girls's husband. If a man married a deceased servant's wife,he had to change his name,and become a hereditary bond servant of his wife's master.Chapter five. ConclusionAlthough the Legal Code in Ming and Qing dynasties restricted remarried widow's rights to their dowry,unmarried widow gained increasing rights to her deceased husband's property. Thus,there were not significant changes in women's property rights between Song and later imperial China.AppendixI trace the practices of changing of name of married women from the Han dynasty toRepublic of China.