淸代後期の夫婦閒訴訟と離婚 --『巴縣檔案(同治朝)』を中心に--

Abstract

Using local archives as source materials, we have recently been able to analyze troubled relationships between husbands and wives and divorce in the pre-modern age in a more matter-of-fact, quotidian manner. This paper is an attempt to examine relations between husbands and wives by focusing on divorce through lawsuits between husbands and wives by analyzing in the main nearly 1, 400 lawsuits under the category of "Women" in the Ba county archive : Tongzhi era. There are many tuihun wenyue 退婚文約 (divorce contracts) in the Ba county archive that show that both husbands and wives went to court against each other to gain advantageous position. In these lawsuits, the husband's side intended to secure rights of ownership of his wife or mistress, and at the best to continue to keep her under his control. The wife's side went in just the opposite direction, intending to prevent the marriage to be reinstated, even though bringing a suit against her husband's side with taking a legal risk. In a word, the wife's side went to court against the husband on predicated on the intent to deny the husband's right to ownership. The true nature of problem was the tendency to regard the ownership of wife as more important than discord between husband and wife, and the husband, wife and other persons concerned were apt to be more interested in the economic issues. Thus, even marriage became a business. At the time of the marriage, large sums of money came into play, and the marriage contract even contains clauses guaranteeing support of the wife's parents. Under such circumstances, the woman who was become a wife, her parents and relatives strove to maintain her commercial value as much as possible. Depending on the circumstances, they might abandon her husband and let her remarry another man. These findings reveal the actual condition of extremely rational behavior in relations between husbands and wives and divorce, including acts of free will on the part of women themselves.