Women and Chinese Patriarchy
Submission, Servitude and Escape

This is a study of the forms of servitude to which Chinese women have been subjected and the avenues of escape open to them. Based on original documentation, oral testimony and personal experience, this work includes eye-witness accounts of the women concerned.

Through the centuries, Chinese women and girls have been transferred, bought and sold for marriage, concubinage, domestic service and prostitution in China and amongst overseas Chinese communities. Although this traffic was apparently stamped out after World War II, it has reappeared in China on a large scale since the mid-1970s. This is a study of the forms of servitude to which Chinese women have been subjected and the avenues of escape open to them. Based on original documentation, oral testimony and personal experience, this work includes eye-witness accounts of the women concerned, their owners, missionary rescuers and those who escaped.