Married Women's Rights to Land in China's Traditional Farming Areas

Abstract

Women's land rights are one of the major issues of the rural land contract in contemporary China. Married women in relatively developed rural areas and under marriage misfortune have elicited much academic and public attention. However, less attention has been devoted to studying married women in traditional farming areas where they are still relatively poor. This paper focuses on women's land rights in their maiden village in traditional farming areas, and shows, based on an analysis of a case study combined with a questionnaire survey, that married women's land rights tend to be retained in their parent village with the implementation of new policy and land contract laws, but that they have almost no rights in their maiden families after marriage, due to the influence of traditional marriage notions and customs. Given the situation of the political and legal framework, it is necessary to further probe, by reviewing past practice and experience, how to ensure women's rights through restricted and specific land readjustment, which may be a realistic and valid approach.