Conservatism within Women's Revolutions: The CCP's Marriage Reforms and Women's Movements

Conservatism within Women’s Revolutions examines the implementation of the CCP’s marriage reforms and women’s movements from the 1930s to the 1950s. This project discusses the impact of these reforms and movements, as well as the factors that influenced the actual enforcement of such reforms. My work posits that although the Party’s marriage reforms and women’s movement achieved limited success in promoting freedom of marriage and divorce and gender equality, these legal ideologies were modified by the Party’s conservatism in addressing the women issue. Methodologically, this thesis examines changes in women’s lives under these Communist reforms through the lens of domestic sphere and public sphere. In addition, conservatism is the thread that connects reforms in marriage, divorce, and women’s activism in my research. In sum, while the CCP’s marriage reforms and women’s movements tore down the institution of traditional family and Confucian womanhood, the ideal of women’s liberation had yet to be achieved due to the Party’s conservative attitude in dealing with the women issue by the 1950s.