ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two examples of the contingency of human rights provision with regard to women in the People’s Republic of China. They are the government’s policy on marriage and divorce and on reproduction. In both cases, the official policy underwent drastic changes, and women were expected to conform to these changes without regard for their individual disposition or well-being. One of the first changes the Communist party made when it acceded to power in Beijing was to dismantle the old “feudal” marriage system, which, according to Maoist dogma, had kept the women of China “oppressed and abused” for thousands of years. Of the many examples that serve to illustrate the extent to which the totalitarian state is prepared to sacrifice the rights of the individual in the name of collective well-being, Communist China’s variable policy on reproduction is certainly one of the most illustrative.
