Twenty-third International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

This paper offers a social-cultural history of state organization and treatment of spousal violence, termed as “wife beating” in China. In delineating this history, this paper answers the following set of questions: 1) What were the knowledge, representations, discussions, attitudes, and resolutions of wife beating in different states throughout Chinese history? 2) How did different states respond to wife beating at different historical junctures? 3) What did the state responses and policies reveal about the nature of the power relationship between the state and the subjects of women? Through pinpointing the structural factors of the dynamics between the nature of different states and the subjugation of women, I argue that a scrutiny of the archival histories, media coverage, and scholarly works highlight the nuances and complexities of the power relationships between the subjects of women and the Chinese state at various historical stages.