The book's first part is entitled The Observers and the author sets the background for the story while also presenting two important figures who wrote about the history of the area.
This book focuses on a particular area in China, called T’an-ch’eng during the 17th century. The author uses the writings of two magister to present actual facts as well as various historical documents. The magister are Feng K’o-ts’an and P’u Sung-Ling. Both have lived at some time in their lives in the area and were able to analyze the people and write about what happened in the area.
The first to arrive in T’an-ch’eng was Feng who served as a magister during the time when the area was affected by a great earthquake. He was followed by Sung-ling, a local, who presents events both from the time he lived in the area as a child and from the time he served as a magister.
Both Observers present the history of the region, starting from the beginning of the century until the moment when the Manchus overturned the former Chinese emperor. For a few months, the area was thrown into chaos as no one was responsible for keeping the peace and imposing laws. The people had to learn how to protect themselves against bands of bandits while also dealing with having their crops destroyed by floods and other natural disasters.
The writers describe the cruelty of the bands of bandits and also the cruel way in which the government choose to deal with the people who disagreed with the state. Both writers were witnesses to the events and saw how many people were killed. At one point, the writers mention how there were so many people killed it became impossible for the families to recover the bodies of their dead ones and bury them properly. In these cases, the people in the villages found themselves in the situation to dig common graves and buried them together. In other cases, the state did not let the families see the bodies of their family members and were only shown where the bodies were buried.
A great deal of attention is given to the natural disasters that hit the area. The writers mentioned swarms of locusts, draughts, earthquakes and floods that destroyed year after year their crops. The situation became so bad many officials feared the whole are will die if the situation was to continue a few years more. People died of starvation and the young and healthy who had the means left the county and moved to other, more fertile lands. Those who did not had the possibilities to move, had to stay and suffer.
The situation became so bad that people resorted to cannibalism and selling their family members to survive. Sung-ling mentions one of those instances where a man tried to sell his wife to a merchant who already bought 10 more women from people like him. The men try to settle in the fair price for the woman and the merchant is only willing to offer the third of the price for a measurement of grains. This scene showed just how dire the situation was and how the price for a human’s life was less than the price for a small quantity of grains.
The second part is called The Land and the author presents various aspects regarding taxes and also the quality of the land and the crops the people were able to get out of their lands.
When it comes to crops, Jonathan D. Spencer mentions a long list of greens, root vegetables, grains, fruits and nuts that grew in the area. Unfortunately, he notes, the crops were often destroyed by flooding or by other unfavorable conditions. The poor could not afford to buy good land so they had more than often access to land near the two rivers running through the area that were prone to flooding. The author goes as far as to estimate that only 1 in ten crops could be considered good and many writers talked how it would be easier to get crops from stones than from their lands.
Many people died from starvation and many lands remained uncultivated as a result. The people also had to deal with harsh winter weather and many people died during the harsh winters where they would freeze to death in their own homes.
The people had to pay taxes for everything they owned and from everything that made them profit. There were certain people in the area, gentry with literary degrees or people involved in the government, who either had a tax reduction or did not had to pay taxes at all. They had the possibility to take other people and their wealth into their care and the people latching themselves to their rich friends would often receive a tax reduction as well.
Spencer notes other strategies used primarily by the rich to avoid paying taxes such as claiming the land was owned by someone else or by registering the land as being of a lesser quality and more than often their efforts paid off as they were asked to pay less taxes.
Unfortunately for the poor people, this meant they had to pay higher taxes. In comparison with the rich who often had hired small armies and could deny paying the taxes, the poor had no other choice but pay even if that meant risking not having enough to survive. As a result, Jonathan notes, many people ended up killing themselves because they were unable to pay the taxes or because they had nothing else to survive off.
In the third part entitled The Widow, the author talks about the situation of the women who remained widowed. Because the area was so often attacked by bandits and because so many men were labeled as being traitors by the state, many women remained widows at a young age. The widows in the chapter are almost all below the age of 20 and they have to learn how to raise their children on their own. Despite this, the women raised their children to be successful men and some of them even became government officials.
The author analyzes some of the loopholes many relatives of the dead husband tried to take advantage of to put their hands on the widow’s inheritance. In one instance, the brothers of the dead husband went as far as to kill his young boy so the widow would have no claim on the inheritance.
Apart from these problems, the author mentions how many women were pressured to remarry. Some decided not to and even resorted to kill themselves rather than marrying some other man who may mistreat them and their children.
The fourth part is entitled The Feud and it is composed mainly of a fictional story of a man named Ts’ui Meng. The main character in the story was a person with a strong sense of justice who did everything he could to help his fellow villagers. At the end of his story, the author mentions another story about a band of bandits that would often attack the village. The second part of the story was inspired by actual events and the author wanted to show with what problems the people in those times had to deal with.
Apart from dealing with attacks from outside, the villagers had to deal also with attacks from bands less known and that were living in the area. What is more, families would often fight over the right for lands and properties and would go as far as to kill their relatives just to ensure they will receive a bigger cut of the inheritance.
In the woman who ran away, the author presents two different stories about two women who got married while also presenting some legal aspects that couples had to follow.
The first story that is mentioned presents women in a positive light while the men are described as being interested only in sexual relationships and money. In the story, a poor man convinces the mother of a young woman to let her marry him. The two get married and the girl’s mother gives them everything they need from a materialistic point of view. The man however is lazy and spends his time gambling so he soon finds himself in the situation of not having enough money to survive. He comes up with a plan to sell his beautiful wife but before he can sell her, the wife asks for permission to visit her mother. While there, the man is surprised to see the luxury in which his wife lived and when he is asked to go outside, the house and every person disappears. The man eventually dies in poverty and without anyone to care for him.
The story presents two aspects about the Chinese society in the 17th century. First of all, a woman had no say in choosing her husband. He was chosen by her parents and she had no other choice but to accept the match. Even though the girl knew she was going to suffer, she had to accept being married to a person she didn’t knew and to a person who tried to take advantage of her.
The second aspect is that a husband was free to sell his wife. In the 17th century, the practice was quite common and the state approved of it. A man who could afford it could buy for himself a good wife while a poor man had to be happy with having a woman of a lesser quality. Even after a woman was married, that did not meant she was free. In fact, a woman could be resold by her husband since the woman was seen as being the husband’s property. Thus, he could sell the woman to a man looking to make her his wife, concubine, servant and even to brothels. A woman’s price was determined by her beauty and by her qualities and a government official usually drafted a contract stating the value of the said woman. In this sense, the woman was nothing but a property that could be resold over and over again. A woman had no say in that matter either and if her husband wanted to sell her to a brothel, she had to do as she was told.
The second story is that of Woman Wang and the author implies it is a real story. The circumstances under which Woman Wang and her husband met are uncertain but what is known is that Woman Wang left her husband for a lover and ran away with him. Their action was dangerous and the author explains all the dangers the couple were exposing themselves to. If they were caught, they both had to be punished by receiving a great number of blows. The husband had the leagal right to kill both the wife and her lover for their deeds and he would not have been prosecuted for his crimes. The people found taking care of the couple on the run also had to be punished by receiving up to 30 blows.
When Woman Wang was abandoned by her lover, she decided to return to her village but instead of going to her husband, she decided to seek refuge in a temple. When the husband found out, he came for her and he was advised by his father to take her home. By taking her home, the husband was putting his own well-being at risk since men were required by the state to divorce their unfaithful wives.
The husband, Jen, decided to take the wife home either way but he ended up killing her one night. To avoid being convicted, he planned to hide her body but got scared and left her out in the open in the woods. The reason why Jen felt scared after killing Woman Wang is that a person had the right to kill someone who wronged them only in the immediate aftermath of their actions. If the person who was wronged let a lot of time pass, then he or she lost their legal right to seek justice and had to rely on the state to do it for them.
The last part is called The Trial and presents the ending and the trial for Woman Wang.
Jen went to the officials himself to report the death of his wife but he did everything he could to blame Kao and his wife. During the trial, it was revealed that Jen was the one who was guilty and the way in which the magister chose to punish the involved partied is particularly interesting and is a mix of wanting to serve justice and appease old traditions.
First of all, the judge had to decide what to do with Jen and with his father. The father was released after it was discovered he had no knowledge of his son’s act and after the magister took pity on him because of his old age.
Dealing with Jen was problematic for a number of reasons. First of all, Jen had the right to kill his wife because he cheated on him. It is true that he did not killed her after finding out about what she has done and that the right to kill her no longer existed after a while. The judge also took into consideration Jen’s father. Jen was the only surviving son and thus the only person capable of taking care of his father. By sentencing Jen to death, he would also sentence the father to a life of poverty and pain. On the other hand, Jen had no children to carry on the family name and this was considered as being an important matter. Because of this, Jen was given the punishment of 30 blows. The punishment could have caused Jen to die as it was in the case of many other but if he did survived, he was free to do whatever he wanted with his life. Another punishment given to Jen was that he would be asked to wear for a long time a symbol of his shame around his neck. While not physically painful, this was also considered as being a cruel punishment, even crueler than the physical beating.
The magister had then to decide how to deal with Woman Wang’s body. Until the trial was over, the body was left in the open in the fields but the magister feared her spirit will come back and hunt the village if they did not take care of it properly. A proper funeral was considered as being extremely important by the Chinese society who believed in life after death and believed that the dead had power over the living. Criminals usually did not received the same funeral an honest person would receive but in some occasions it was decided for them to be buried with respect and with great grandeur. In Woman Wang’s case, the magister decided to offer her a grand funeral and bury her in a good coffin.
The third person with whom the magister had to deal with was Kao. Even though he was not involved in Woman Wang’s death, he struck Jen and any form of psychical violence was frowned upon by the government. In normal circumstances, the person who beat another person would either have to give up his belongings or receive a corporal punishment. In this case however, the magister decided that Kao will have to pay for Woman Wang’s funeral as a way of punishing him for what he has done.
The book ends with the story of Woman Wang and the aftermath of her death and through this ending the author presents once more the dynamics inside the Chines society in the 17th century.
