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Beyond Cultural Interpretivism: Analysis of Married Out Women Issue in Rural China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2025

Junshu Ye Open the ORCID record for Junshu Ye [Opens in a new window]  and
Xinrui Li
Junshu Ye*
Affiliation:
School of Marxism, Zhejiang University of Chinese Medical (TCM), Binjiang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
Xinrui Li
Affiliation:
School of Law, Zhejiang University, Xihu District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
*
Corresponding author: Junshu Ye; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The dispute of married out women has become an important modernisation problem since the 1990s as the result of urbanisation and industrialisation. It concerns social stability at grassroots that may affect the ruling base. While the Chinese government is constantly striving to solve it, it also shows how deficient the protection of women’s property rights is that it causes so many controversies. Currently, the cultural explanation that simply attributes the phenomenon to traditional patriarchal culture is popular among scholars and widely accepted, which is, however, proved to be misleading. This article attempts to break this stereotype and points out that this trouble is not directly related to Chinese traditional culture. Rather, it is caused by the majority’s tyranny under the current villager self-government and collective property rights. This article also attempts to find possible solutions, requiring improving the rural self-government system and clearly defining the boundaries of collective property rights by law.

Keywords

married out womentraditional culturevillage self-governancethe majority’s tyrannywomen’s property rights
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , First View , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

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