Overview

To what extent do newly available case records bear out our conventional assumptions about the Qing legal system? Is it true, for example, that Qing courts rarely handled civil lawsuits those concerned with disputes over land, debt, marriage, and inheritance as official Qing representations led us to believe? Is it true that decent people did not use the courts? And is it true that magistrates generally relied more on moral predilections than on codified law in dealing with cases? Based in large part on records of 628 civil dispute cases from three counties from the 1760s to the 1900s, this book reexamines those widely accepted Qing representations in the light of actual practice. The Qing state would have had us believe that civil disputes were so minor or trivial that they were left largely to local residents themselves to resolve. However, case records show that such disputes actually made up a major part of the caseloads of local courts. The Qing state held that lawsuits were the result of actions of immoral men, but ethnographic information and case records reveal that when community/kin mediation failed, many common peasants resorted to the courts to assert and protect their legitimate claims. The Qing state would have had us believe that local magistrates, when they did deal with civil disputes, did so as mediators rather than judges. Actual records reveal that magistrates almost never engaged in mediation but generally adjudicated according to stipulations in the Qing code.

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9780804734691

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Reviews

This is a book that we have long been waiting for, because it tackles a previously neglected aspect of Chinese law, the civil law. --American Historical Review

'Professor Huang has provided hard evidence for this view ... Given the factthat his sources come from widely separated parts of China and are completely consistent in showing extensive 'civil' litigation throughout the period, there can be little doubt of the correctness of his view. He does not limit himself to statistics. By very close reading of the sources, and the use of various supplemental materials, he has been able to present a vivid picture of the entire spectrum of the dispute-settling process among Chinese peasants during the period ... The breadth of his coverage makes this a central work for the study both of Chinese legal and social history. Everyone who follows him will have to take it into account.' Journal of Asian Studies

This is a book that we have long been waiting for, because it tackles a previously neglected aspect of Chinese law, the civil law. - American Historical Review

Author Information

Philip C. C. Huang is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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