Research On The Crime Of Rape And Juvenile In The Middle And Late Qing Dynasty

Since ancient times,minors,especially in the relatively young age group,are often the high incidence of sexual abuse.However,the ancient legislation and judicature ignored this phenomenon for a long time.It was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that the government first stipulated the punishment standard for rape of young women.After the development of yuan and Ming Dynasties and the early Qing Dynasty,to the middle and late Qing Dynasty,"rape children" related legislation and judicial practice has made considerable progress and has distinctive characteristics,which is worthy of in-depth study.Around this theme,this paper mainly discusses from the following four partsIn the first part,the author defines "raping the young" in the Qing Dynasty,pointing out that it is a kind of improper sexual behavior with underage men and women under 12 years old(sometimes under 16 years old in the judicial practice of the Qing Dynasty)by means of temptation or coercion.In addition,the author also combs the relevant legislation of Chinese dynasties,especially in the Qing Dynasty.In the second part,through the sorting out of 445 cases of child rape from the third year of Qianlong to the third year of Xuantong,using the research method of combination of quantitative statistics and text analysis,this paper sums up the distinct elements and characteristics of child rape cases in this period.Specifically,it is divided into the characteristics of human factors,including the age,occupation and family background of the perpetrator,the gender,age and external image of the victim,and the interpersonal relationship between the perpetrator and the victim;The characteristics of space-time elements include the spatial and temporal distribution of crimes.In the third part,the author focuses on the judicial practice of rape cases.This chapter first introduces the Qing Dynasty judiciary,pointing out that it is a multi-level rigorous system.Then,from the two perspectives of "the determination of the crime of rape of children" and "the judgment of the crime of rape of children",it reproduces the judicial practice process,judgment basis and corresponding results of the crime of rape of children in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.This chapter focuses on the basis of judicial decisions,including the victim’s age,rape and adultery,criminal consequences,principal and accessory,kinship,and the standard of compassionate punishment.The fourth part is the comment and analysis of the legislation and judicial practice of child rape in the middle and late Qing Dynasty.Based on certain research,the author points out that its rationality includes: first,the attention and prudence of the official attitude;Second,the law tends to be gender oriented,treating the injured children and girls equally;Thirdly,the criteria of strict treatment of the crime of raping children are mainly reflected in two aspects: limited compassionate punishment and exclusion from the common amnesty crime;All of the above three points are distinctive and even progressive,which can be used for reference by contemporary law.At the same time,the limitations are also obvious: first,the lack of humanistic care for the victims is easy to cause serious "secondary injury";Secondly,the different judgments of different social classes;Moreover,the family’s concealment of internal adultery makes the effectiveness of legal regulation greatly reduced;Fourth,the prevailing concept of chastity "reverse shielding" the behavior of rape;Finally,the essence of the legislation and justice of the crime of rape of children at this time is the support of ethical order rather than the protection of group rights and interests,so it can not be regarded as the real progress of social civilization.