In ancient China, was there a crime of rape?

There was a crime of rape in ancient times.

Rape (also known as sexual violence, sexual assault or forced intercourse) is an act of forcing a victim to engage in sexual intercourse against the victim's will, using violence, threats or injury. In almost all countries, rape is criminalized with severe statutory penalties. For example, on August 6, 2018, India passed an amendment to its penal code, making the rape of a young girl under 12 years of age punishable by up to the death penalty.?

According to Article 236 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China*** and the People's Republic of China, the crime of rape is defined as the act of forcibly engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman against her will, using violence, coercion or other means,? or the act of intentionally having sexual intercourse with a young girl under the age of 14.

Also, according to the third paragraph of Article 20 of China's Criminal Law, if one acts in self-defense against a violent crime in progress, such as rape and other serious crimes that endanger personal safety, causing death or injury to the wrongdoer, it is not a case of excessive self-defense, and he or she is not criminally liable.

Extended information:

Ancient rape (Source: China) p>Ancient Rape (Source: China.org)

Ancient Chinese law was much more lenient on the crime of "rape". For example, the Miscellaneous Laws of the early Western Han Dynasty, contained in the bamboo slips of the Zhangjiashan Han Tomb, stipulated that for the crime of adultery, both parties should be "finished for the city and pounded for the city" (a man should build a city for the state, and a woman should pound rice for the state). However, if the man was an official, he was punished for the crime of rape and sentenced to palace punishment. By the Tang Dynasty, a married person who committed adultery was merely charged with two years in prison.

Ming and Qing laws were further reduced to ninety canes, but often with the additional punishment of two people **** wearing a yoke, shackles and public display for a number of days.

In the case of unmarried adultery, as in the case of "a newspaper for a newspaper", the Tang law stipulated that both parties would be sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment, and would not be allowed to get married in the future. Perhaps in view of the unsympathetic nature of such legislation, the Ming and Qing laws did not have such a provision, but only stipulated that an unmarried man or woman who committed adultery would be sentenced to 80 strokes of the cane.

For sexual behavior that is considered abnormal, ancient Chinese law also had greater tolerance. As far as we can see, there is no clear crime or penalty for bestiality or sodomy. Only in the Ming Dynasty than the attached regulations, provides:

"The kidney stems into the human feces door lewd play, than according to the law of obscenity poured into the human population, canes one hundred."

Just the act of sodomy as a general defilement against the person to be punished, and is not considered a sexual act. The Qing Dynasty set up regulations, all in the robbery, kidnapping and other felonies have forced sodomy behavior, to be aggravated to "decapitation".

But ancient Chinese law allowed private individuals to execute adulterers on their own. As early as the first emperor of Qin Shi Huang's "Huiji carved stone", openly declared that "the husband for the host, kill the innocent", the husband like a boar to other nests and adultery, the wife killed him is not guilty. There is no such thing in later laws.

Later, the Yuan Dynasty changed the traditional law, the husband in the adulterous place on the spot to kill the adulterer and concubines can not be guilty, and catching adultery to sue the official is only the adulterer and adulterous woman canes seventy-seven only. This law was later inherited by the Ming and Qing dynasties, allowing the husband to kill the adulterer and concubine on the spot. The wife, in turn, could not exercise the same lynching power over her husband.

China.org.cn - Shakespeare's play "Adultery" is more lenient than Europe's laws in ancient China