Law in Alliance with Qing
In a society that is undergoing dramatic economic, cultural, and legal changes, it is not surprising for qing to differ from what it used to be. The fact that people believe law is secondary to qing does not necessarily mean that people do not expect the law to reinforce qing or promote new understandings of qing as conditions change.
Putianese women's legal consciousness shows that, when law is - or could become - congruous with qing, people anticipate that law should play a more important role in enforcing qing or transforming old understandings of qing to help it catch up with social changes.4.2.1 Embrace of State Law When It Enforces Qing
Although Putianese people consider it normal for a couple to give birth without going through the legal process of getting married, people still attach a stigma to single mothers and assume that women who give birth out of wedlock are immature, irresponsible, and lacking in the ability to control their own bodies. Even some leftover women themselves share this belief, which serves as the principal barrier to their childbearing in Chinese society. It is predictable that people may develop a more inclusive attitude in the future towards mothers who are single by choice. At this moment, however, childÂbearing out of wedlock goes against Putianese people's understandings of qing, as the majority still believes it is immoral for a single woman to become a mother. [...]
[Women who adhere to this belief] demonstrate a distinctive form of legal consciousness with regard to official Chinese population policy prohibiting childbearing out of wedlock: embrace of the law when it enforces qing. These women believe that, if a single woman becomes a mother, she will have to suffer from abandonment or discrimination, and thus state law should protect them by constraining childbearing within marriage. Indeed, my interviewees fail to acknowledge that women have the right to choose any kind of family structure, including a single-parent family.
Their legal consciousness, howÂever, reflects a prevalent belief among ordinary people that state law should protect its citizens by punishing those who act against qing. One important feature of this form of legal consciousness is that state law has been considered a source of support for qing and not in opposition to it.4.2.2 Perception of State Law As Too Weak When It Fails to Transform “Old” Understandings of Qing
A final form of legal consciousness is evident among interviewees who view law as potentially useful in promoting new understandings of qing. Unfortunately, in their view, state law falls short of achieving the desirable transformation of social and cultural norms regarding leftover women. For example, Yue, a 27-year-old medical laboratory scientist, was the only Putianese women in this study to suggest that single women should be granted reproductive rights. According to Yue, some women desire for valid reasons to become single mothers by choice, but the current social environment makes it difficult to do so. She herself would probably not choose to be a single mother, even if it were legalized, because it might endanger her relationship with her father, a traditional Putianese man, who firmly believes that it is immoral to give birth outside marriage. Yue argues that law's refusal to legalize single women's reproduction reinforces the widespread belief that becoming a single mother by choice is morally unacceptable.
In Yue's view, the law is rather weak in protecting single mothers from the pressure imposed by family members as well as by society in general, as many people do not consider leftover women's reproduction as consistent with qing. But Yue views people's understandings of qing as malleable - they may change at different times and under different situations. Yue believes that state law needs to shoulder the responsibility of helping to challenge social discrimination against single mothers. This distinctive form of legal consciousÂness, therefore, perceives the law as too weak, when it could potentially be more useful to help transform qing.
People such as Yue may adopt this form oflegal consciousness when local customs and other social norms are not inclusive enough to accommodate the needs of people who disagree with the dominant understandings of qing. They may then look to state law to transform qing to ensure social justice - but the inability of law to achieve this goal generally leaves them disappointed and even disillusioned.
To summarize, by exploring the legal consciousness of ordinary Putianese women born and raised under the one-child policy, I have detected two broad ways in which the interaction of law and qing relates to Chinese people's thoughts and actions. I argue that these variations of legal consciousness result from the dynamic relationship between qing and legal orders - both state and non-state. Ordinary Chinese people invoke qing to form their own ideas of justice and fairness and decide whether they should prioritize a particular legal order over others. If people consider a particular legal order as conflicting with qing, they choose to avoid or resist it. At the same time, they may turn to other legal orders that meet the demands of qing. When the outcomes of state law endanger their interests, people may deploy qing to confront the problems arising from state law. When the majority considers breaking a certain official law is consistent with qing, people will dismiss state law and view those who violate it as law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, when state law supports and reinforces qing, people embrace it and expect it to protect the citizens. As the meanings of qing are subject to the ever-changing social environment within which people form their understandings of it, people expect that state law should play a positive role in transforming qing in order to create harÂmony, respect, and justice in society.