Description
Book SynopsisTo 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 lawsuitsthose concerned with disputes over land, debt, marriage, and inheritanceas 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 1760's to the 1900's, 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 w
Trade Review
"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
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Defining categories: disputes and lawsuits in North China villages before the communist revolution 3. Informal justice: mediation in North China villages before the communist revolution 4. Formal justice: codified law and magisterial adjudication in the Qing 5. Between informal mediation and formal adjudication: the third realm of Qing justice 6. Two patterns in the Qing civil justice system 7. Extent, cost and strategies of litigation 8. From the perspective of magistrate handbooks 9. Max Weber and the Qing legal and political system Appendixes References Index.
