Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests in Matrimonial Justice: A Comparative Study of Divorce Cases Involving Domestic Violence in the Qing Dynasty and Contemporary Times as an Example

Based on the comparative study of the Qing legal texts represented by the Qing Laws, the criminal archives, and the contemporary laws and regulations represented by the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China, this paper presents the results of a comparative study of 72 cases from the first month of the third year of Emperor Chongde’s reign in the Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1638) to December of the fourth year of Emperor Chongde’s reign in Shengjing (the original archives of the Criminal Ministry of Shengjing), 1,361 “women’s” cases from the records of Baxian County during the Tongzhi period (A.D. 1862–1875), and 2,648 marriage and family inheritance cases from the civil and commercial cases heard in the courts of P County in 2020–2021, totaling 4,081 cases, from which typical cases of domestic violence were extracted to conduct empirical analyses and to explore the changes in women’s rights and interests in judicial practice across different periods, which may provide a good basis for the development of women’s rights and interests over time. This will explore the changes in women’s rights and interests in different periods of judicial practice and may provide experience for the prevention and control of contemporary “domestic violence,” especially “marital violence.”