The Abolishment of Concubinage in Hong Kong: An Analysis of Its Process and Opinions on the Issue (1948-1971)

This study illustrates the process of the abolishment of concubinage in Hong Kong and analyzes the interactions and debates between the colonial government and different social groups for or against the Chinese custom of concubine keeping.;The process of abolition of concubinage can be divided into three phases. The first phase (1948--1956) began with the establishment of the Strickland Committee to study the need to revise the Chinese marriage law. The committee proposed legislation against concubinage, but the government shelved the reform using the excuse of the objection of Lo Man-kam, a renowned representative of the Chinese community. As the colonial government treated the reform of marriage system as the colonized Chinese's own business and relied on the Chinese male elites to manage the Chinese community, in which it was common for the wealthy men to keep concubines, the government then was not under any pressure to abolish concubinage.;As for Hong Kong society at large, gender and social equality was not yet a popular appeal. Even some women's groups thought that women themselves were responsible for the problem of concubinage. Many Chinese males took in concubines to bear male offspring and serve as nurses. Some enlightened Chinese males showed sympathy to concubines and advocated for legislation to abolish the outdated custom of concubine keeping. But their voices were not strong enough to bring any changes.;In the second phase (1957--1964), women's groups actively promoted the abolition of concubinage owing to their growing dissatisfaction with government's delay to reform the Chinese marriage system. The colonial government then appointed the Secretary of Chinese Affairs to launch the second study of the issue. Since the Secretary opted for "natural disappearance" of the Chinese custom of concubinage in the future instead of legislation to abolish it, the government did not promote any reform. With the rising awareness of social and gender equality among women's groups, however, they criticized the abuse of concubinage by males and the government's unjust policy on the issue. To justify their arguments, the concept of social equality was often quoted in their discourses.;In the third phase (1965--1971), the colonial government was under the pressure to reform the Chinese marriage law when the British government signed the pacts of the United Nations. The government hence appointed the main leader of the women's groups, Ellen Li, as a member of the Legislative Council to prepare for the abolition of concubinage with efforts including the work to solicit the support of other members of the Legislative Council as well as villagers in the New Territories.;Hong Kong's 1967 Incident interrupted the process of legislation to reform the Chinese marriage system. It paradoxically also changed the style of colonial governance. The change of the title of the Secretary of Chinese Affairs to the Secretary of Home Affairs implied that the rationale behind the colonial policy of "non-intervention" in Chinese customs was no longer valid. Meanwhile, the need for concubines declined along with the change of the views of marriage and family among the Chinese population, the promotion of birth control, and the rise of educational and economic status of women.;In this phase, opinions against the abolition of concubinage were diversified and those supporting reform emphasized that the old system caused injustice and discrimination towards women. In 1970, The Legislative Council passed the Marriage Reform Ordinance, taking effect one year later. Not until then did the prolonged process of the abolishment of concubinage finally end. To understand the crux of the problem, as this thesis demonstrates, we need to historicize Hong Kong's colonial governance from a gender perspective.;By engendering the history of Hong Kong colonial governance with regard to the issue of Chinese marriage custom, this thesis explains why it took such a lengthy period of more than a couple of decades to establish a system of monogamy for Hong Kong's Chinese population, lagging far behind other Chinese societies in the world, including mainland China and Taiwan. Adopting the methodology of textual analysis, the author discusses the changes in different discourses on the issue of concubinage. Contextual analysis, which entails a study of the responses of the colonial government and different social groups to social and ideological changes of the time, was also conducted to explain why the above mentioned changes took place.;In sum, for decades the voices to abolish concubinage by women's groups in Hong Kong proved too feeble owing to their own limitations and lack of political potency in front of the overpowering colonial government and patriarchal Chinese male elites. Not until changes in colonial governance as well as society in areas of education, economy, consciousness and so on took place along with the growth of women's groups under internal and external sociopolitical impact was the age-old custom of concubine keeping officially abolished in the colony.