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Ritual? What Ritual? Secularization in the Study of Chinese Legal History, from Colonial Encounters to Modern Scholarship

Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, mhprkatz{at}gate.sinica.edu.tw

The author explores the reasons why scholars have overlooked the importance of judicial rituals in Chinese legal culture and considers this neglect in the light of scholarship on secularization. He explores the issue by analysing the interaction between Chinese and western judicial practices in the colonial histories of the Straits Settlements (now Malaysia and Singapore) and Hong Kong. The concept of secularization appears to be of relevance to the study of Chinese legal culture, given that secularized societies tend to become differentiated into autonomous sub-systems, religion being restricted in influence to its own sub-system. In fact, however, religion has continuously interacted with a range of other sub-systems in China, including legal ones, which indicates that, in modern Chinese legal culture, religion and the law have not evolved into separate sub-systems.

Key Words: China • judicial practices • judicial rituals • law • religion • secularization

Social Compass, Vol. 56, No. 3, 328-344 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0037768609338762


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