Women and Property in China, 960-1949

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.