Editor's Introduction

Abstract

In 1956 the editors of Chinese Women (Chung-kuo fu-nü) collected a series of articles that had appeared in the journal in late 1955 (the journal was then Women of New China [Hsin Chung-kuo fu-nü]) and early 1956 and published them under a separate title, Why Our Marital Relationship Has Broken Down, the title of the lead article in the journal's original series. The article brought an important issue into the public domain—marital infidelity and divorce among Party cadres—through a woman's public denunciation. The case of Liu Lo-ch'ün, a Peking middle school teacher and the author of the lead article, against her husband, Lo Pao-i, a ranking preliberation Party member and an administrative cadre in the Peking trade bureau, provided a unique opportunity for an open discussion of the criteria for a successful marriage, the causes of divorce, norms concerning marital felicity, means of handling marital disputes, advice to the lovelorn, etc. Why Our Marital Relationship Has Broken Down provides an excellent basic resource for the study of marital norms and behavior in the mid-1950s, and a good deal of the discussion retains its relevance for the 1970s. But it is more than a review of problems of marriage and divorce. The case of Liu Lo-ch'ün and Lo Pao-i served as study material for a host of only partially identified organizations and subgroups, and the commentaries derived from those closed discussions and criticisms are not only made public in this series; they are themselves constituent elements in the making of a "case" for intensive study and criticism. As a result, Why Our Martial Relationship Has Broken Down is an invaluable document for an analysis of issues that go beyond the case at hand. A careful reading of the documents presented here reveals how broadly phrased ideological and political norms are made salient to everyday life, in this instance, to premarital and marital life situations. As readers, we are witnesses to a complicated process of normative elaboration, the typification of behaviors which those norms are intended to cover, and the concretization of such behaviors situationally and linguistically. Normative elaboration provides a key to the salience of ideology in modern-day China. It also provides access to the means by which deviance is defined, typified, concretized, and sanctioned. An "account" of Lo Pao-i's behavior is created, sustained and legitimated, and it is, as the documents demonstrate, the basis for organizational sanctions levelled against Lo. Liu Lo-ch'ün's behavior is subject to an "accounting" process that is similar in all respects but the last three; it is neither sustained, legitimated (at least in the eyes of the editors of the journal), or backed by institutional sanctions. A comparison of the cases of Liu Lo-ch'ün and Lo Pao-i thus provides an unusual example of both the success and the failure of an "account" in the definition, typification, and sanctioning of deviant behavior.