NCJ Number
180027
Journal
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 1999 Pages: 91-101
Date Published
1999
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article studies the significance of suicide among rape victims in Qing China, 1744 to 1903.
Abstract
During the period under review, more than 40 percent of all rape victims committed suicide; the figure was much higher among victims of attempted rape and acquaintance rape. Qing rape laws reflected Confucian traditions, which controlled women's sexuality and demanded their chastity. If a woman was sexually assaulted and survived the ordeal, the stringent rape laws made it very difficult for her to proclaim her innocence, let alone to accuse the perpetrators of acquaintance rape. Only serious injury and death of the victim could convince the court to convict the perpetrator. Victims who survived their ordeals had little to live for; they were ashamed, humiliated, unchaste, perhaps beaten and injured and eventually abandoned by their husbands and families. Those who took their own lives or were murdered while resisting rape were posthumously declared "virtuous" women. A woman's life was of less value to her lineage than was her virtue. Table, note, references