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

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.

A rare window for the English speaking world to learn how scholars in China understand and interpret central issues pertaining to women and family from the founding of the People’s Republic to the reform era.

The year after its founding in 1949, the People¿s Republic of China began its campaign to overturn the traditional marriage system. In order to reach audiences of limited literacy, the Chinese government produced and distributed inexpensive "comic books" to farmers and workers. Li Fengjin: How the New Marriage Law Helped Chinese Women Stand Up is a lively example of this early PRC propaganda. Written in graphic novel format, the pamphlet tells the story of the injustices the young woman Li Fengjin faced under the the old marriage system, and the freedom she finally achieved with the help of the Chinese Communist Party and its marriage law. The pamphlet is essentially a facsimile of the original, but also includes an insightful introduction, useful explanatory notes, a select bibliography, and the text of the 1950 marriage law. The translation is true to the tone of CCP propaganda. Li Fengjin provides an interesting and informative overview of an important moment in modern Chinese history, with graphics that grab student interest.

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.

The First Chinese Marriage Law was a civil marriage law passed in the People's Republic of China on May 1, 1950. It was transformative because the Marriage Law was a radical change from existing patriarchal Chinese marriage traditions. It was also highly political because it sharply reflected ideologies about class struggle, land reform, Marx and Leninism, which were prevalent in the Chinese Revolution. The New Marriage Law with its revision of family relations did not happen in one night, but through a long process. According to Neil Jeffrey Diamant, in 1931, "Marriage Regulations" was promulgated in the party's embattled "soviet" in the rural province of Jiangxi, provided Article 1 a totalistic condemnation of the "feudal" Chinese family; The 1934 Marriage Law was employed as a means to mobilize women to support the revolutionary cause. The basic idea of abolishing the "feudal" family system still remained unchanged. It was not until 1949 when the CCP (Chinese Communist Part) took control of the state that they started to implement the new vision of family structure and relationships. The 1950 New Marriage Law was a revised version of the Marriage Law that had been used in Jiangxi Soviet and the northern borders.[1] This new law continued calling for the "abolishment" of the feudal marriages, and for the first time promoted the idea of monogamy, love, free choice, the willingness of two parties, and equal rights for both sexes. The formulation and implementation of Chinese Marriage are the two complicated questions that I want to dig into more. I wonder how the New Marriage Law was influenced by the May Fourth Movement and the Chinese Nationalist Party, the Soviet Union, and Chinese revolutionary legacy. In this project, I hope to figure out what the New Marriage Law is, find out each strategy for each question, and figure out the 1950 New Marriage Law's position and significance in Chinese history.