| This dissertation looks at law in the Western Zhou period not as a series of rules and punishments, but more holistically, in terms of its legal system (i.e., rules, procedures, and institutions) and legal tradition (or legal culture, i.e., attitudes about the nature, role, aim, and proper implementation of law). The sources on which my analysis is founded are only those materials that date to the Western Zhou period, primarily bronze inscriptions, and the "Kang gao" and "Jiu gao" chapters of the Shangshu. My translations of these sources are provided in Appendix B.;The two-fold approach employed helps to uncover certain features of paramount importance to any legal system, i.e., the justification and aim of law, legal deonticism, and validity. Chapter One is a summary of pertinent scholarship on Western Zhou law. Chapter Two turns to legal theory as a means to outline those facets of legal systems addressed later in this study with regard to the Western Zhou. Chapter Three introduces the inscriptional sources, and also provides summaries of their contents as well as those of the "Kang gao" and "Jiu gao." In Chapter Four, I look at the legal process, rules (both substantive and procedural), punishments, sources of law, and the legal bureaucracy. In Chapter Five, I situate the legal system in its cultural setting. In it, I suggest that the rhetoric and ritual of both warfare and religion among the aristocratic class played important roles in effectuating a valid legal system. In Chapter Six, I address the questions of whether the Western Zhou had a full-fledged legal system or simply a jural-like one, and what law was in the minds of the Western Zhou people.;The application of methodologies employed and the subjects addressed are aimed at furthering our appreciation of a system that is generally glossed over in a manner that fails to take into account the mechanisms by which it exists and operates. I also hope that this study will help to enable cross-cultural and cross-temporal comparative studies involving Western Zhou law. |
