Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 7, 2022

The Protection of Women’s Land Rights in the Song Dynasty

(Abstract)

Chai Rong

In the Song dynasty, women’s rights to land were mainly derived from gift or inheritance. The protection of women’s land rights was based on a holistic legal theory that emphasized practical effects, and these rights were reflected and guaranteed at both the legislative and judicial levels to a certain degree. In order to pursue benevolent government and maintain filial piety, judges often broke through the limits of the legal code and provided many systematized judicial interpretations protecting women’s land rights. The main reason such rights were protected by law under the Song was their special social context: women’s real rights were expanded by their improved status in the family and their position in labor. The principle of filial piety elevated senior women’s legal status, and Neo-Confucian teaching were not yet binding on women’s actual land rights. Drawing on the Song dynasty’s holistic legal theory of the protection of women’s land rights and their systematized judicial interpretation is a way of using traditional Chinese legal culture to improve today’s legal arrangements.