Decoupling : gender injustice in China's divorce courts /
Ethan Michelson, Indiana Unversity-Bloomington.
- 1 online resource
- Cambridge studies in law and society .
Includes index.
Sisyphus goes to divorce court -- The right to decouple -- The divorce twofer: why court behavior is decoupled from the right to decouple -- Studying judicial decision-making: court decisions in Henan and Zhejiang -- "Many cases, few judges" and the vanishing three-judge trial -- Tracing the origins of the divorce twofer to heavy caseloads -- How judges gaslight domestic violence victims in divorce trials -- Divorce denials: judicial discourse and judicial decision-making -- Fight or flight: consequences of the judicial clampdown on divorce -- Possession is nine-tenths of the law: why wife-beaters gain child custody -- Quantitative patterns in child custody determinations: sons to fathers, daughters to mothers, abusers rewarded, victims punished -- Conclusions: assessing the impact of law by observing judicial behavior.
"Not long after immersing myself in this project, I began to visualize Sisyphus going to divorce court. His fate is an apt metaphor for the protracted and sometimes futile uphill struggle of China's mostly female divorce plaintiffs, whose petitions will almost certainly fail at first - even in cases involving domestic violence, regardless of the severity of the allegations or the strength of the evidence. Many plaintiffs give up on litigation, either resigning themselves to staying married to their abusers or pursuing divorce through civil government channels outside the court system. Of those who do return to court, most will eventually succeed, albeit sometimes only after multiple attempts and long delays"--
9781108768177
2021050098
Divorce--China. Divorce--Law and legislation--China. Women--Social conditions.--China LAW / General