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This article explains how minority women in rural China managed to use state legal and political institutions to obtain a divorce, despite numerous obstacles. Beginning with a legal controversy over why women from the Yi minority were going to court for "fun" and then divorcing their husbands, I proceed to look at the many factors that may have contributed to divorce in rural China, such as state ethnic policy, generational empowerment, culture, and the role of community in mediation and collective action. While such factors were influential, I argue that women's divorce in Yunnan was largely the result of a particular, time-bound confluence of revolutionary political forces that were unique to China, and not the direct product of the law or ethnic culture and status.
A Legal Controversy in Rural China, 1956
It seemed like just another ordinary fall day in a village of the Yi minority community in Yunnan Province, on China's southwestern border. As the sun rose over the glistening fields, families woke up and began their chores. Sometime later, their tasks completed, several young women, laden with recently harvested produce, met in the village square to go to the market town, as was their custom and duty. This was not an easy trip: Yunnan was a poor, mountainous province with few paved roads, railways, or motorized transport.
After walking for several hours, they arrived at their destination. The market town, located in a valley, was bustling with peasants who had streamed down from mountain villages. The sounds and smells of donkeys, goats, squealing pigs, and terrified chickens filled the air as the women took up their positions on the roadside to hawk their produce. By early afternoon they were finished. Their responsibility fulfilled, and with some free time on their hands before their return trip, the women decided to wander a bit. Passing through the town's main thoroughfare, they saw the gated building of the county's political administration. Nearby was the court. Noticing a crowd gathered inside, the women decided to see what was going on. This activity, a cultural practice known as kan renao, or "getting in on the fun," was not entirely novel, as rural folk in the area (as well as in others) had been known to "gather...