Justice in domestic violence cases has never been easy to deliver; China’s early laws against it didn’t pretend to be fair
- Recently screened footage of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs physically assaulting Cassie is a reminder how hard it’s always been to punish perpetrators of domestic violence
- Imperial China had laws against domestic violence that dated back 2,200 years, but right up until 1911 the punishments for men and women were grossly unequal
The video of Sean “Diddy” Combs physically assaulting Cassie is hard to watch. The surveillance footage, from 2016 but recently released, shows the American rapper and record producer punching, kicking and stamping on his then-girlfriend in a hotel.
Combs’ vile actions were those of a coward, which is what most perpetrators of domestic violence are.
In spite of a social milieu that was steeped in patriarchy, victims of domestic violence in premodern China could seek legal recourse against their abusers. The same patriarchy, however, also informed the laws and punishments that didn’t even pretend to be fair.
An early injunction against domestic violence is found in the statutes of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC): “A wife is fierce, and her husband beats her to discipline her. If he tears her ear, or breaks her limb or finger, or injures her skin or body, what is the punishment for the husband? His beard shall be removed.”
While it might be considered humiliating for the man, or even unfilial (one’s hair was the gift of one’s parents and mustn’t be cut off), as a punishment for injuring one’s wife sporting a clean-shaven face was a slap on the wrist.
Besides, the wording of the law suggests that a man beating his wife was normal and expected if she was “fierce”. It was considered a crime only when the beating resulted in fractures or bleeding ears, for example.
The unfair treatment of women in cases of spousal abuse continued into the Tang dynasty (618–907), where punishments for husbands physically assaulting wives were lighter than when wives did the same to husbands.
The punishment of a man guilty of beating his wife was two degrees less severe than that for ordinary assault. If the battering resulted in his wife’s death, he would be dealt with as though he had assaulted an ordinary person, which involved jail time and maybe a fine.
If a woman beat her husband, she would be imprisoned for one year. If the beating resulted in serious injury, her punishment would be intensified by three degrees. If she killed her husband, she would be beheaded.
The Song period (960–1279) followed Tang laws on spousal violence, but another law stipulated that “when a wife accuses her husband [of a crime], she must serve two years in prison, even if her accusations are proven to be true.”
This obviously stopped most women from coming forward, not just to accuse their husbands of spousal abuse, but of any criminal activity.
The famous poetess Li Qingzhao (1084–1155), who was beaten by her second husband, was having none of it. When she found out about her husband’s shady dealings, she accused her husband of embezzlement and sued for divorce. Although she was granted a divorce, she had to go to jail.
It was only through her personal connections with literary friends in government that she served only nine days in prison.
The domestic violence laws of the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911) continued in the same vein as Tang and Song laws.
Although a man would be sentenced to death by strangulation for killing his wife during a fight (for a woman’s life was deemed to be worth something by then), the punishments for women abusers were much more severe.
If a husband became paralysed from the beating, the wife would suffer death by strangulation; if he died by accident, she would be beheaded.
If she was found guilty of deliberately killing him, she would be executed in the most horrible way – the infamous death by a thousand cuts.
While more equitable laws in China and many parts of the world today offer better legal protection for abused spouses, the very nature of domestic violence makes its harder for victims, both male and female, to come forward, and for the perpetrators to face justice.
