Women and Chinese Patriarchy: Submission, Servitude and Escape

This collection explores how Chinese women and girls have been transferred, bought and sold for marriage, concubinage, domestic service and prostitution, and the avenues of escape open to them, over the century from 1860 to 1960. The issues that it raises are of immediate interest today. The trade in women and girls has reappeared in China on a large scale since the mid-1970s, and in the last few years more than 65,000 people have been arrested for trafficking. Based on original documents, oral testimony and personal experience, the book is enriched by the eye-witness accounts of the women concerned, their owners, missionary rescuers and those who escaped. The vivid case studies cast new light on western and Chinese perceptions of freedom, sexual morality and women's roles.