Women, property, and Confucian reaction in Sung and Yüan China (960-1368) / Bettine Birge.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Women and Property before the Sung: Evolution and Continuity -- Chou Feudalism and Confucian Ideals -- Han Dynasty Developments: Communal Living, Common Property -- Dowry versus Betrothal Gifts -- T'ang Inheritance and Property Law -- Women and Property in the Sung: Legal Innovation in Changing Times -- Sung Law and the Legal System -- Transmission of Wealth to Women -- Daughters and Sons in Family Division -- Daughters' Inheritance by Testament and Legal Protection of the Property of Minors -- Inheritance by Daughters without Surviving Brothers -- New Provisions for Daughters in Cut-off Households -- Intervention of the State -- Daughters and Posthumous Heirs -- Women's Property within Marriage -- Taking Property out of a Marriage after the Husband's Death -- Remarriage and the Law -- Separate Property within Marriage While the Husband Was Alive -- Divorce -- Disposition of Dowry When a Wife Died without Heirs -- Conclusion: Property, Gender, and the Law -- Women's Property and Confucian Reaction in the Sung -- Patrilineality and Daughters' Inheritance -- Opposition to Private Property within Marriage -- Chu Hsi's Encouragement of Dowry Donation -- Dowry Donation and the Learning of the Way Fellowship -- Growing Concern over Dowry during the Sung -- Learning of the Way Ideals and Women as Household Bursars -- Northern Sung Discourse on Women as Household Managers -- Chu Hsi and Women's Roles in the Household -- Chu Hsi's Contemporaries and Followers -- Huang Kan's Enforcement of Learning of the Way Ideals -- Transformation of Marriage and Property Law in the Yuan -- Marriage and the Levirate in Mongol and Chinese Society -- Law in the Yuan Dynasty -- Family Property and Daughters' Inheritance -- Inheritance in Cut-off Households -- Women's Separate Property in Marriage -- Changing Laws on Marriage and Property in the Yuan -- Separation of Mongol and Chinese Law, 1260 to the End of 1271 -- Mongolization of the Law and Universal Application of the Levirate, 1271-1276 -- Reassertion of Chinese Values and Lenient Enforcement of the Levirate, 1276-1294 -- Confucian Transformation of Marriage and Property Law, 1294-1320 -- Exaltation of Chastity in the Late Yuan -- Post-Yuan Developments -- Conclusion: Gender, Mongols, and Confucian Ideals.

This book, originally published in 2002, argues that the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century precipitated a transformation of marriage and property law in China that deprived women of their property rights and reduced their legal and economic autonomy. It describes how after a period during which women's property rights were steadily improving, and laws and practices affecting marriage and property were moving away from Confucian ideals, the Mongol occupation created a new constellation of property and gender relations that persisted to the end of the imperial era. It shows how the Mongol-Yüan rule in China ironically created the conditions for radical changes in the law, which for the first time brought it into line with the goals of Learning the Way Confucians and which curtailed women's financial and personal autonomy. The book evaluates the Mongol invasion and its influence on Chinese law and society.

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