Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan: Cases from the Yuan dianzhang

by Bettine Birge

Overview

The Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century and Khubilai Khan’s founding of the Yuan dynasty brought together under one government people of different languages, religions, and social customs. Chinese law evolved rapidly to accommodate these changes, as reflected in the great compendium Yuan dianzhang (Statutes and Precedents of the Yuan Dynasty). The records of legal cases contained in this seminal text, Bettine Birge shows, paint a portrait of medieval Chinese family life—and the conflicts that arose from it—that is unmatched by any other historical source.

Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan reveals the complex, sometimes contradictory inner workings of the Mongol-Yuan legal system, seen through the prism of marriage disputes in chapter eighteen of the Yuan dianzhang, which has never before been translated into another language. Birge’s meticulously annotated translation clarifies the meaning of terms and passages, some in a hybrid Sino-Mongolian language, for specialists and general readers alike. The text includes court testimony—recorded in the vivid vernacular of people from all social classes—in lawsuits over adultery, divorce, rape, wife-selling, marriages of runaway slaves, and other conflicts. It brings us closer than any other source to the actual Mongolian speech of Khubilai and the great khans who succeeded him as they struggled to reconcile very different Mongol, Muslim, and Chinese legal traditions and confront the challenges of ruling a diverse polyethnic empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674975514
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/24/2017
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Bettine Birge is Associate Professor at the University of Southern California in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures with a joint appointment in the Department of History.

Table of Contents

Maps, Figures, and Charts viii

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

Part I The Age of Khubilai Khan and the Yuan dianzhang

1 The Historical and Social Context of the Yuan dianzhang 15

2 Yuan Administration and the Legal System 36

3 Origins, Contents, and Transmission of the Yuan dianzhang 57

4 Notes on the Translation 78

Part II Chapter 18, "Marriage," from the Yuan dianzhang: An Annotated Translation

5 Sections 1-2: Marriage Rites and Exchanges; Getting Married 87

6 Sections 3-5: Marriage between Officials and Commoners; Marriages of Military Personnel; Divorce 168

7 Sections 6-8: When the Husband Dies; Levirate Marriage; No Levirate Marriage 208

8 Sections 9-12: Secondary Wives; Marriage between Slaves and Commoners; Marriage of Entertainers; Marriage during the Mourning Period 254

Appendix A Translation of Title Page of the Yuan dianzhang 279

Appendix B Marriage Cases from Chapter 18 of the Yuan dianzhang in Chronological Order 281

Appendix C Marriage Cases from Chapter 18 of the Yuan dianzhang with Dates 283

Bibliography 285

Acknowledgments 309

Index 313

Editorial Reviews

Birge has been working on Song and Yuan marriage law for more than two decades and is better qualified than anyone else to do the translation. This is a pleasure to read; she writes lucidly and gracefully. The subjects—law in China, marriage law, the Yuan period—are all ones that will draw readers to the work. Birge’s translation will be used not only by historians of China, but also by scholars and students interested in comparative law, social life and marriage, plus the Yuan dynasty and the Mongols more generally.

Patricia Buckley Ebrey

Based on painstaking research on legal decisions concerning marriage during the Yuan dynasty, this work illuminates the contradictions and difficulties the Mongols faced in attempting to develop a consistent approach to marital law. Birge’s descriptions of the Mongol government and the lawmaking process are informative, and her translations accurate and readable. The book offers many revealing insights, including that women instituted many of the legal cases, an indication that they were not as secluded or powerless as commonly thought.

Morris Rossabi

[An] exciting addition to the scholarship on the Mongol Yuan empire…An indispensable source for both specialist and general readers who are interested in the social, legal, and gender history of the Mongol empire.

Daigengna Duoer

A pleasure to read. Birge writes lucidly and gracefully.

Patricia Ebrey