The Crime Of Wives And Concubines And The Judicial Practice In Ming Dynasty

The crimes of wives and concubines and relevant judicial practices in the Ming Dynasty are the article’s research emphasis. The article mainly bases on the Ming dynasty’s existing official historical documents, large number of cases in archives, literati notes, and refers to the legalprovisions,then the article analyses the beginning and the end of those cases,summarizes the basic characteristics of the Ming’s female criminal behavior, and makes a further exploring to the women’s role in Ming dynasty’s society.The first chapter systematically combes the related laws on the crime of wives and concubines in the Ming dynasty and in the Tang and Song dynasties. Most of the crimes of wives and concubines focus on homicide, fighting, curse, sexual crimes and other acts that disorder the harmonious families’relationship.Seen from the statutes, the makers of laws completely considered any possible criminal behaviors and made several appropriate legislation and punishment measures, all theses statutes made the criminal punishment neither leniently nor severely.The second part analyses the case on crimes of Ming dynasty’s wives and concubines,in terms of the Categories of Female Crimes, the motivation of crimes, the basis of conviction and the results of trials.Adjudicating such cases, officials mostly convicted according to the law. And in dealing with criminal cases without causing casualties, local officials will try to preserve the lives of wives and concubines on the condition that it didn’t violate the law. Of course, the Emperor plays a decisive role in the final conviction rights.The third chapter mainly analyses the characteristics of the crimes of wives and concubines.There are three distinctive features of them.Firstly,the victims are mainly family members.Secondly, the means of committing are brutal.Thirdly, sexual crimes become the main types.The last chapter summarizes the full text based on the above three sections.The historical materials in Ming dynasty,such as the legal statues, the cases in archives,and so on, have clearly revealed women’s new look in Ming dynasty. Women in Ming dynasty had no longer submissive and abided by the traditional virtues.They had the courage to resist the patriarchal family ethical, to pursue their own happiness. The study on the crimes of wives and concubines in Ming dynasty will provide important reference significance for crimes of female nowadays.