{"title":"Relational Dignity, State Law, and Chinese Leftover Women’s Choices in Marriage and Childbearing","authors":"Qianni Liu","doi":"10.1017/als.2020.43","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Legal scholars tend to understand dignity as an intrinsic value that each individual gains at birth. This article aims to rethink dignity from a relational perspective. As dignity is highly dependent on other people’s judgement and evaluations in China, I use “relational dignity” to stress the precarious and relational nature of dignity in societies in which people attach great importance to guanxi networks. I discuss how relational dignity and state law interact to shape leftover women’s choices in marriage and childbearing. The precarious and relational nature of dignity motivates leftover women to follow dominant social norms in order to fit in. As a result, it reinforces state law’s discrimination against unmarried women and single mothers. On the other hand, the rubber-stamp quality of state law enables leftover women to use legal recognition to win societal recognition and attain relational dignity.","PeriodicalId":54015,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Law and Society","volume":"8 1","pages":"151 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2021-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/als.2020.43","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Asian Journal of Law and Society","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/als.2020.43","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract Legal scholars tend to understand dignity as an intrinsic value that each individual gains at birth. This article aims to rethink dignity from a relational perspective. As dignity is highly dependent on other people’s judgement and evaluations in China, I use “relational dignity” to stress the precarious and relational nature of dignity in societies in which people attach great importance to guanxi networks. I discuss how relational dignity and state law interact to shape leftover women’s choices in marriage and childbearing. The precarious and relational nature of dignity motivates leftover women to follow dominant social norms in order to fit in. As a result, it reinforces state law’s discrimination against unmarried women and single mothers. On the other hand, the rubber-stamp quality of state law enables leftover women to use legal recognition to win societal recognition and attain relational dignity.
期刊介绍：
The Asian Journal of Law and Society (AJLS) adds an increasingly important Asian perspective to global law and society scholarship. This independent, peer-reviewed publication encourages empirical and multi-disciplinary research and welcomes articles on law and its relationship with society in Asia, articles bringing an Asian perspective to socio-legal issues of global concern, and articles using Asia as a starting point for a comparative exploration of law and society topics. Its coverage of Asia is broad and stretches from East Asia, South Asia and South East Asia to Central Asia. A unique combination of a base in Asia and an international editorial team creates a forum for Asian and Western scholars to exchange ideas of interest to Asian scholars and professionals, those working in or on Asia, as well as all working on law and society issues globally.
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