1950 New Marriage Law

Question 1

1. What could women own and seek?
2. What was forbidden? (2)
3. How old did women have to be to marry?
   - What was also required in order to marry?
4. What did the law also advocate? (2)
   - Why? (2)

Answer 1

1. Property, divorce.
2. Paying of dowries and bride prices.
3. 18 years old.
   - Free will.
4. Later marriage and childbirth.
   - More time to study Mao and be political.

Question 2

1. What % of marriages had had a bride aged 16-17 between 1946 and 49?
   - What had this decreased to between 1958 and 65?
2. What % of marriages had been organised by parents in the late 1940s?
   - What had this decreased to between 1966 and 76?

Answer 2

1. 20%.
   - 2%.
2. 30%.
   - 0.8%. (under 1%).

Question 3

1. How many petitions for divorce were filed in 1953?
   - What did men lose?
2. Who tried to reclaim wives with force?
   - The mother-in-law’s status ________.
3. Where else did snubbed husbands attack their wives?

Answer 3

1. 1.4 million.
   - Financial investment.
2. Violent mobs.
   - Decreased.
3. Court proceedings.

Question 4

1. Why did many Party Cadres side with their local population against the New Marriage Law?
2. Which communities particularly resisted change?
   - Where did many women’s lives continue as before?
3. When did the CCP launch a 2nd propaganda campaign to promote the NML?

Answer 4

1. To avoid resistance/unrest/turmoil.
2. Traditional Muslim communities.
   - Xinjiang.
3. 1953.