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2 - Policies and Counterstrategies

Negotiating State-Sponsored Filiality in the Everyday

from Part I - Ruling the Empire through the Principle of Filiality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

Yue Du
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Chapter 2 explores how local actors exploited legally sanctioned filiality to advance their perceived interests in court: Widowed mothers monopolized property of households legally headed by their grown-up sons; parents in difficult economic situations killed their small children to frame their creditors, with the understanding that imperial law assigned little weight to filicide; people resorted to false accusations of lack of filial piety to kickstart their cases or to incriminate their adversaries. The Qing state tolerated or even connived at such local manipulations, despite significant administrative costs and compromise of other established legal and moral principles, which enabled the state to co-opt local actors’ initiative to shape society and reinforce normative notions of parent–child relations.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Policies and Counterstrategies
  • Yue Du, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: State and Family in China
  • Online publication: 29 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974479.004
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  • Policies and Counterstrategies
  • Yue Du, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: State and Family in China
  • Online publication: 29 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974479.004
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Policies and Counterstrategies
  • Yue Du, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: State and Family in China
  • Online publication: 29 October 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108974479.004
Available formats
×