ORPHANED DAUGHTERS: ON THE SO-CALLED PROPERTY RIGHTS OF DAUGHTERS IN THE SOUTHERN SONG PERIOD

Abstract

A longstanding and contentious issue in Chinese legal history is whether women had the legal right to inherit and own property. During the Southern Song in particular, certain historical and legal sources have been interpreted by scholars in such a way as to propose that they did, at least to a limited extent, as reflected, for example, in the “daughter's half-share law” (nüzi fenfa 女子分法), which stipulated that a daughter would receive half a son's portion upon the death of both parents. The current study, through an examination of documentary sources on the inheritance rights of daughters, clarifies the historical circumstances surrounding the phenomenon, and concludes that no fundamental legal right to inherit and own property such as that enjoyed by men was intended. Rather, laws specifying the inheritance rights of women were the result of legislative measures for the protection of orphaned daughters, out of a concern to ensure that they would not be deprived of property that they would have received (for example, as dowry) had their parents not died. The Song's uniqueness lay not in the elevation of women's property rights, but rather in the implementation of explicit policies for the social good. That similar laws were not continued in the Ming and Qing did not in itself mean that the principle of protecting orphaned daughters had been abandoned, but rather that this principle would be applied through the discretionary powers of magistrates, as records of actual legal judgments demonstrate.