Legal Status Of Women In Marriage In The Qing Dynasty

The feudal legal system came into being with a cultural and historical heritage for thousands of years. A series of legal systems, established in Tang Dynasty, were accumulated and improved by dynasties in the later development of society, and finally became relatively mature by Qing Dynasty. With a history of more than300years, Qing Dynasty, as the last dynasty in Chinese feudal society, achieved greatly on economics, culture, legislation and so on. The feudal legal system promotes not only the development of Chinese culture and history, but also the modernization of legal society. History informs you the future and a good understanding of the culture, history and legal foundation in our country provides access to the learning of contemporary law. The realistic novel, Dreams of Red Mansions, set in the prosperous period of Kanji and Qianlong, has comprehensively reflected the development of economics, politics, culture and legislation. The legal system of Qing is thus verified in these complex plots of Dreams of Red Mansions when we analysis the marital legal system in it. The operation of legal systems in reality can be consequently further understood in the process. It is a shining point for the thesis to study matter of law from the perspective of a combination of law and literature. The law incorporated in literature can be more vivid and convincing. It will fall into three parts:The first part:basic features of marital system in Qing Dynasty. It will briefly introduce the basic principles, basic features of Qing’s marital system and its main marital types. Women’s marital status in Qing will be gradually analyzed through the generalization of the basic features of marital system in Qing.The second part:the marital system demonstrated by Dreams of Red Mansions. It consists of elaboration on relative legal systems on both establishments of marriage and dissolution of it. Several classic marital cases crossed in the thesis can vividly explain the practical operation of marital system at that time.The third part:analysis of the marital status of women in Qing. It demonstrates the inequality of men and women and concubine system in that society combined with an analysis of destiny of characters in the book. The root reason of women’s inferior position is concluded with a lot of examples from the stand point of law.