Правовое положение женщин в истории средневекового Китая

318 Yulia Mylnikova . Legal status of women in the history of medieval China… and severe social damnation. The analysis performed in the study gives evidence that women possessed the right to inherit the family property. They could inherit property in their native home as well as in the home of their husband’s at sharing the family property. This finding refutes the opinion that women’s property rights were limited to only the dowry at the moment of marriage. Under the influence of Confucian moral and ethical norms, family and conjugal legislation was aimed at sustaining the integrity of the family, proper functioning of the family life, as well as order and well being of the entire patronymic structure. This set of codes contains specific provisions where women are given familial responsibility. In so doing, the government aimed to control gender relationships to regulate family practice and maintain order in society as a whole. The study confirms the exceptional historic place that the Tang and Song dynasties take in the evolution of women’s legal position. Under the influence of specific ethnic and cultural development, the period of the 7 th to 13 th century was relatively liberal. The breadth of rights given to women by law under the rule of the Tang and Song dynas- ties is unprecedented in the history of imperial China. The patriarchal Confucian ideals imposed by the government affected the position of women in the following eras. Specific legal provisions considerably abridged women’s property rights, and the Neo-Confucianist image of a chaste widow imposed moral limitations on marriage for women under the Ming and Qing dynasties.