Female criminality in Qing China: Adulteress-murderesses in legal and popular culture, 1644-1912.

摘要

This study was guided by three questions: What was the official construction of female criminality in Qing China and how did it relate to the formation of idealized womanhood? How was adultery-murder treated in codified law and in actual legal practice? How was popular culture different from legal culture in terms of the construction of female criminality?; Apart from being viewed in Western scholarship as an ideological statement and an instrument of control, the Qing has also been as an embodiment of the state's repressive attitude towards female sexuality. This was epitomized by the state-sponsored cult of widow chastity which reached its highest point in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was also buttressed by the rape laws which put the rape victim's chastity on trial.; However, the research materials of this dissertation do not demonstrate a close relationship between the repressive Neo-Confucianism and legislative changes. Instead, they document the state's conscious effort to make adaptations to social situations and practical problems. The criminal stipulations and case records demonstrate the adaptability of the state on illicit sex and adultery-related homicide cases. The most pressing practical problem that faced the Qing state was the need to maintain a balance between an insistence on sexual and human morality on one hand and the principle of justice on the other.