Previous scholarship has presented a static picture of property
inheritance in China, mainly because it has focused primarily on men,
whose rights changed little throughout the Imperial and Republican
periods. However, when our focus shifts to women, a very different and
dynamic picture emerges.
Drawing on newly available archival case records, this book demonstrates
that women's rights to property changed substantially from the Song
through the Qing dynasties, and even more dramatically under the
Republican Civil Code of 1929-30. The consolidation in law of
patrilineal succession in the Ming and Qing dynasties curtailed women's
claims, but the adoption of the Civil Code and the gradual dismantling
of patrilineal succession in the twentieth century greatly strengthened
women's rights to inherit property.
Through an examination of the changes in women's claims, the author
argues that we can discern larger changes in property rights in general.
Previous scholarship assumed that patrilineal succession and household
division were but different sides of the same coin--sons divided their
father's property equally as his patrilineal heirs. The focus on women,
however, reveals that patrilineal succession and household division
were, in fact, two separate processual and conceptual complexes with
their own distinct histories. While household division changed little,
patrilineal succession changed greatly. Imperial and Republican laws of
inheritance, finally, were based on two radically different property
logics, the full implications of which cannot be truly appreciated
unless the two are examined in tandem.
