Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China

Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI) - The City University of New York (CUNY)

On a hot summer day, Wang Guiping attended her divorce trial at the Xiqing Peoples Tribunal. Taking an unfaithful spouse to court would, Guiping thought, help her end a hopeless relationship and actualize her lawful rights upon divorce. Later that day, Guiping would find herself betrayed not only by her husband, but by the court system and her own legal counsel. Taking this case as a point of departure, Ke Li recounts decades-long research on divorce litigation in rural China in her book Marriage Unbound. Ultimately, this talk articulates a firm belief: divorce, seemingly prosaic, offers a unique window onto phenomena of great importance to sociologists, political scientists, sociolegal researchers, and China scholars.