Ideology and Sexuality: Rape Laws in Qing China

Abstract

It is generally accepted that Qing China (1644–1912) was a straitlaced, sexually repressed society. Robert H. van Gulik, for example, ended his study of sexual life in China with the fall of the Ming dynasty, in part because he believed that Chinese attitudes toward sexuality became much more repressive after the Ming, and the generalizations he made in his book were not appropriate for the Qing (1961:333–36). This dramatic change in attitude has been attributed to the resurgence of Cheng- Zhu Neo-Confucianism, with its strict view of sexual relations in general, and female sexuality in particular (Ropp 1981:120–24).