The Inheritance Rights of Daughters

Abstract

Scholars of Chinese legal and social history have long been intrigued by apparent evidence that daughters had stronger rights to family property during the Southern Song than at any other time in Chinese history before the twentieth century. The evidence comes from the Collection of Lucid Decisions by Celebrated Judges (Minggong shupan qingmingii, hereafter referred to as Qingmingii), a collection of 473 Southern Song judgments. A number of cases contained therein suggest that a daughter had the legal right to a set share of property half the size of a son's share at the time of family division and that she enjoyed a greater claim still if her father's household died out for lack of an heir. The subject was the focal point of a heated debate between Niida Noboru and Shiga Shuzo in the 1950s and 1960s (Niida, 1942, 1962; Shiga, 1953-55, 1967). At issue was not only the rights of daughters, but what they reveal about the nature of family property and the relationship between property inheritance and ritual/lineal succession in imperial China. Following in the tradition of his mentor, Nakata Kaoru, Niida contends that family property was jointly owned by all members of the household, male or female (kazoku kyyosansei). It was this coownership, not any principle of ritual or lineal succession, that dictated