Explores the social and cultural significance of Chinese communist legal practice in constructing marriage and gender relations in the turbulent period from 1940 to 1960.

Kay Ann Johnson provides much-needed information about women and gender equality under Communist leadership. She contends that, although the Chinese Communist Party has always ostensibly favored women's rights and family reform, it has rarely pushed for such reforms. In reality, its policies often have reinforced the traditional role of women to further the Party's predominant economic and military aims. Johnson's primary focus is on reforms of marriage and family because traditional marriage, family, and kinship practices have had the greatest influence in defining and shaping women's place in Chinese society. Conversant with current theory in political science, anthropology, and Marxist and feminist analysis, Johnson writes with clarity and discernment free of dogma. Her discussions of family reform ultimately provide insights into the Chinese government's concern with decreasing the national birth rate, which has become a top priority. Johnson's predictions of a coming crisis in population control are borne out by the recent increase in female infanticide and the government abortion campaign.

This volume includes 14 articles translated from the leading academic history journal in China, Historical Studies of Contemporary China (Dangdai Zhongguo shi yanjiu). It offers a rare window for the English speaking world to learn how scholars in China have understood and interpreted central issues pertaining to women and family from the founding of the PRC to the reform era. Chapters cover a wide range of topics, from women’s liberation, women’s movement and women’s education, to the impact of marriage laws and marriage reform, and changing practices of conjugal love, sexuality, family life and family planning. The volume invites further comparative inquiries into the gendered nature of the socialist state and the meanings of socialist feminism in the global context.

A new look at the impact of the Communist Revolution on Chinese family structure.

What is the state of intimate romantic relationships and marriage in urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan? Since the 1980's, the character of intimate life in these urban settings has changed dramatically. While many speculate about the 21st century as Asia's century, this book turns to the more intimate territory of sexuality and marriage—and observes the unprecedented changes in the law and popular expectations for romantic bonds and the creation of new families. Wives, Husbands, and Lovers examines how sexual relationships and marriage are perceived and practiced under new developments within each urban location, including the establishment of no fault divorce laws, lower rates of childbearing within marriage, and the increased tolerance for non-marital and non-heterosexual intimate relationships. The authors also chronicle what happens when states remove themselves from direct involvement in some features of marriage but not others. Tracing how the marital "rules of the game" have changed substantially across the region, this book challenges long-standing assumptions that marriage is the universally preferred status for all men and women, that extramarital sexuality is incompatible with marriage, or that marriage necessarily unites a man and a woman. This book illustrates the wide range of potential futures for marriage, sexuality, and family across these societies.

The Communist revolution promised Chinese women an end to thousands of years of subjugation, an equality with men in all matters legal, political, social, and economic. This book examines the extent to which this promise has been kept. Based on nearly a year of field research and interviews with over 300 women in six widely separated rural and urban areas, it gives us a vivid picture of Chinese women today - their day-to-day lives, their views of the present, and their hopes for the future. To date nothing approximating equality has been achieved: in working conditions, in pay, in educational opportunity. In the cities, and to a lesser extent in the countryside, women are better off than in pre-revolutionary China. But nowhere except in the rhetoric of the regime are they equal to men. Nor does the immediate future look much brighter, given the continuing social constraints, the government's controversial family limitation program, and the nature of the new economic policies introduced in 1980. So far as possible, the women interviewed are allowed to speak for themselves. Some take refuge behind government slogans, some are shy or wary, but a surprising number are quick to give their own opinions despite an ever-present government cadre. These opinions, combined with the author's astute observations on their local and national context, add up to a wholly new perspective on an all too familiar problem.

Conclusion -- Notes -- Korean MMA Cadets by Class -- Glossary of Names and Terms -- Bibliography -- Sources and Acknowledgments -- Index