Sexuality and gender relations in politics and law

Abstract

To be chaste is very difficult and painful, favored by no one, of profit to no one, of no service to the state or society, and of no value at all to posterity. It has lost its vigor and has no reason to exist. Lu Xun, 1918 (Pao Tao 1991:118) Of late the new reformers have suggested the so-called new ethics. They denounce filial piety on the ground that children are borne by parents only because of their sexual passion.…They also regard lustful women and disloyal ministers in history as good people. Lin Shu, letter to Cai Yuanpei, 1919 (Tse-tsung Chow 1960:69) Today, there are still those who regard marriage problems as “personal affairs.” This viewpoint is mistaken.…Now we have to publicize the Marriage Law and have public trials to convince people that marriage problems are not just personal matters and everyone should care. Women's Federation report on the 1951 Marriage Law (Diamant 2000:45) During the New Culture Movement (1915–1919), China's urban intellectuals rejected the Confucian family values espoused by the late imperial government. But the system they challenged was deeply rooted in local custom and lineage power. The Qing government had created an informal system of control that minimized reliance on punitive legal sanctions to maintain the family-based social order. In addition, as we have seen, the late imperial state stressed positive rewards and transformation through education, rather than coercion, to enforce its policies. The imperial government's exceptional success in spreading its messages internalized gender values, especially in women, who were honored for widow fidelity and even for martyrdom in resisting rape or asserting their sexual purity. Court records show individual women testifying to their deep commitment to chastity, not only as a matter of family honor but also as a personal individual responsibility, to the point where a woman would take her own life to express her moral conviction (Theiss 2004).