Gender, Property, and the “Autonomy Thesis” in Southeast Asia: The Endowment of Local Succession in Early Modern Vietnam

Abstract

The claim that Vietnamese inheritance patterns were bilateral and indicative of wider patterns of Southeast Asian women's autonomy or Vietnamese protonational uniqueness reflect major themes in the historiography on Vieệtnam. Past scholarship suggests that lawmakers of the Lê (1427–1783) and Mạc (1527–60) dynasties codified bilateral succession practices, attesting to the relative autonomy that Vietnamese women shared with their Southeast Asian counterparts. This essay challenges the claims of bilateralism and argues that Lê dynasty law, local custom, and legal practice preserved the principles of patrilineal succession. Though the language and adjudication of the law limited daughters' succession rights, ironically, these restrictions on their private rights enabled women to carve out spaces of authority in village economic and religious life. To avoid the transfer of their property to male relatives, some women instead transferred property to local institutions in order to lay claim over their personal property and to ensure the maintenance of their ancestral rites in perpetuity. In effect, rather than a system that elevated women's status, the property regime served as a site of contestation in which women could claim large economic and religious roles in local settings.

Historians of Southeast Asia often assert that the region's cultures conferred important roles on women, particularly in agriculture, economy, descent, and ritual practices (Coedès 1968, 9; Reid 1988, 6; Sharp 1962, 8–9). This “autonomy thesis,” introduced by Georges Coedès and rearticulated by contemporary scholars, suggests that the prominence that women enjoyed was manifest in bilateral inheritance practices (Reid 1988, 146; Wolters 1999, 18). Although Vieệtnam usually stands on the periphery of Southeast Asia, with respect to women's property rights, scholars emphatically mark it as a part of the “cultural matrix” of the region (Keyes 1995, 187; Reid 1988, 147; Whitmore 2000, 230). Oliver Wolters elaborates further on the relationship between property rights and regional coherence:

By extending the autonomy thesis to Vieệtnam, scholars reined a problematic zone into the region. Though some historians have recently stressed the need for alternative narratives of gender relations in early Southeast Asian history, they have not challenged the assumptions underlying the autonomy thesis (Andaya 2000; Day 1996; Evans 2002; Reynolds 1995).

Whereas earlier anthropological scholarship on Southeast Asia adopted the autonomy thesis and sought to provide localized examples of this theory, later compilations sought to explain the causal relationship between bilateral kinship patterns and its meanings in Southeast Asian contexts (Errington 1995, 7–8; Keyes 1995, 187; Karim 1995, 39; Luong 1989; Van Esterik 1982, 1). Most recently, Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz have challenged the applicability of the autonomy thesis, arguing that the “relative hegemony of themes of gender equality/complementarity need to be explored rather than assumed” (1995, 8). However, because their volume explores postcolonial shifts in Southeast Asia, the individual contributors implicitly adopt historical constructions of women's autonomy and bilateralism in the region (Brenner 1995, 24; Ong 1995, 164). Peletz's study on collateral kinship practices transcends narratives of lineality, but he also suggests that other areas of the Malay peninsula were bilaterally organized (1988, 10).

In Vietnamese studies, historians rely on the bilateralism theme to represent a uniquely national tradition that could be contrasted with Chinese cultural norms. In her influential work Vietnamese Women across the Ages (Phụ nữ Vietnam qua các đời), Lê Thị Nhâm Tuyết cites the Penal Code of the [Lê] Dynasty (Quốc Triều Hình Luật 國 朝刑律, hereafter simply the Lê Code) to mark Vietnamese gender relations as egalitarian. She asserts, “The important rights that women enjoyed during the period of feudal control demonstrate the important status of women in that period. These statutes were not merely regulations on paper but reflected social reality” (1975, 122). She continues,

Though Lê's work reveals a tension between the socialist critique of imperial rule and the nationalist valorization of the Lê dynasty's property regime, she nonetheless reifies Vietnamese women to represent a national essence (Lê 1975; Vũ 1993). Other Vietnamese scholars from the socialist tradition adopt a similar perspective, referring to the Lê Code as “a testament of the struggle of Vietnamese women, [which] recognized and codified a number of customary practices that reflect the unified communitarian and democratic spirit of the working class” (Trần 2001, 37). Western scholars of Vieệtnam also draw on these links to highlight Vietnamese exceptionalism (O'Harrow 1993, 175; Taylor 1983; Trần 1990; Woodside 1988; Young 1976; Yu 1990, 1999). In his Birth of Vietnam, Keith Taylor claims that “the term bilateral seems to be most appropriate for describing Vietnamese society in early historic times. The law codes of Vietnamese dynasties in later centuries reflect a relatively high status for women, indicating resistance to patriarchal influence from China” (1983, 77).

Although the belief that the Lê Code accorded women equal property rights permeates contemporary Vietnamese and Western scholarship, the roots of this argument rest in turn-of-the-twentieth-century debates on the exercise of colonial power in Indochina (Tran 2004, 36). The idea that Vietnamese inheritance patterns reflect a unique cultural identity emerged at the intersection of French colonial debates on legal reform and the arrival of scholar-officials trained in a new Orientalist mode of thought (Singaravélou 1999). These scholars from the École Française d'Extrême Orient constructed a model of Vietnamese womanhood to represent the colony's cultural features (Tran 2004). In 1908, Charles Maitre, then director of the École, proclaimed that “the only way in which the Annamites have demonstrated their incontestable superiority over the other peoples of the Far East rests in the rank that they have given to women, roles [which] were almost equal to men's rank: the laws of the Lê [dynasty] confirm this [observation]” (1908, 249). Benedict Anderson's suggestion that French colonial authorities pursued educational and cultural policies “to break politico-cultural ties between the colonized peoples extra-Indochinese world” (1991, 125) provides a logical explanation for the need to demarcate Indochinese uniqueness. However, the emergence of the model of “Vietnamese women as unique,” ironically, served the interests of the emergent nationalist movement (Lê 1932; Nguyễn 1932; Vũ 1948, 1959, 1974). The image of “Woman” as a sign of Vietnamese uniqueness reflects a century-old pattern of representation conceived by the French and appropriated by nationalists (Nguyễn and Tạ 1987, 81–84; Vũ 1948; Tạ 1981).²

This study challenges claims that Lê dynasty law codified bilateral customs to protect women's property claims. Building on and reiterating my recent arguments about the division of household property, I suggest in this study that that bilateral inheritance patterns were not encoded into “Vietnamese culture” and that this representation distorts the logic and letter of the Lê dynasty legal statutes (Tran 2006). Rather, state law and legal practice restricted women's claims to property, but these limitations ironically enabled some women to lay claim to local influence. Some women circumvented the patrilineal confines of state law and local custom to lay claim over family property in perpetuity through particular succession strategies. In some instances, sonless women transferred money and landed property to local institutions in order to guarantee the maintenance of their succession rites. Although state law prescribed that a man's property be given to his brother's son(s), some women bypassed these requirements to assume important roles in local society. This alternative model of succession provides insight into women's lived experiences and transcends the “law as custom” paradigm of Vietnamese history, with implications for the study of gender in East and Southeast Asia.

China, Vieệtnam, and Southeast Asia

The discourses on Vietnamese women's property claims draw on a reified model of Chinese “Woman” to represent national uniqueness or regional cohesiveness (Reid 1988; Taylor 1983; Wolters 1999). Scholars invoke the Lê Code's alleged guarantee of women's property rights as evidence of bilateral traditions, leading fifteenth-century lawmakers to protect women's property rights (Tạ 1984, 26; Taylor 1983, 77; Yu 1999, 21). The variants of this argument generally converge on one issue: that Lê dynasty law reflected an essential Vieệtnam, which was fundamentally non-Chinese. Tạ Văn Tài articulates this interpretation well:

Though an oppressed Chinese “Woman” remains the model against which Vietnamese women are contrasted, scholars of Southeast Asia and Vieệtnam rarely draw on the scholarship on Chinese gender history. This literature attests to the great variation of Chinese women's experiences and the fallacy of constructing Chinese women as a reified group. Dorothy Ko (1994, 3) has convincingly argued that the paradigm of an oppressed Chinese woman reflects the political agendas of the twentieth-century nationalist movements. Other scholars have demonstrated that class, long-term economic and social shifts, and individual survival strategies greatly complicate Chinese women's experiences (Ko 1994; Mann 1998; Sommer 2000).

The scholarship on women and property in Chinese history suggests even greater implications for this study. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Japanese and Western scholars have debated the issue of daughters' inheritance rights in the Southern Song period. At the heart of the debate lies Japanese scholar Niida Noboru's claim that during the Song period, daughters enjoyed a portion of household property equal to one-half of sons' shares (McDermott 2004, 203). Katherine Bernhardt (1999, 36) challenges Niida's premise, arguing that the “half-share law” required that “all unmarried daughters [were] given a share one-half of what sons would have received,” with the other half reverting to the state. The regulation, Bernhardt argues, merely reflects an attempt by the Song state to lay claim over one-half of the father's estate (38). Bettine Birge (2002, 56–57, 76) disagrees with Bernhardt, arguing that Chinese women enjoyed unparalleled inheritance and succession rights, including customary and legal claims over their dowries and fathers' estates. Whether one accepts Niida's and Birge's conclusions or Bernhardt's critique of the “half-share” hypothesis, the debates suggest that Chinese women did enjoy a fair amount of property claims in the Tang and Song periods, belying simple characterizations of Chinese women against their more autonomous Vietnamese counterparts.

Power, Feminism, and Modernity

By characterizing Vietnamese women's property claims as reflective of a protofeminist agenda, scholars mark them as signs of both tradition and modernity. The seemingly contradictory features can be understood as mutually reinforcing if we consider that by marking women's elevated legal status as a timeless feature of Vietnamese tradition, traditional Vietnamese law embodied the ideals of modernity (gender equality) long before other societies. Such a characterization of early modern Vietnamese society betrays a modern interpretation of five-hundred-year-old sources. The sources reveal that state law, local structure, and customary regulations were not premised on equality between people but on a complex web of kinship networks and social obligations. In that society, one's property claims were predicated on gender, familial, and social position. By suggesting that the codification of women's property claims reflects a liberal, protofeminist agenda, scholars implicitly frame the discussion within Western narratives of modernization.

Within this framework, scholars have argued that children in early modern Vietnamese families inherited household property equally, regardless of gender (Nguyễn and Tạ 1987; Reid 1988; Tạ 1984; Yu 1990). In addition, scholars suggest that the Lê Code enshrined bilateral kinship practices by guaranteeing a daughter's claim to succeed her father (Haines 1976; Nguyễn and Tạ 1987; Yu 2000). In this context, succession was marked by the acceptance of “fire and incense” (hương hỏa 香 火) property, the income from which could be used to maintain the spiritual offerings to one's departed parents. However, the available legal sources suggest that the prescriptive legal sources neither guaranteed daughters' claims to an equal share of household division nor codified long-standing patterns of bilateral succession. Rather, state regulations and local practice protected the property claims of sons according to the principles of patrilineal succession. Despite these restrictions, some women were able to lay claim over household property through clever strategies of succession. That said, we now look to the sources to tell our story.

Household Division in the Lê Code

Conventional wisdom holds that principles of gender equality governed the division of household property between sons and daughters during the Lê dynasty. With respect to household division, Yu Insun suggests that “family property was distributed equally among all children, regardless of sex” (1990, 17). This interpretation of the law describes a relatively egalitarian property regime that guaranteed daughters an equal share of household property, a feature that would distinguish Vietnamese custom from that of China, South Asia, and many world cultures (Lê 1975; Maitre 1908, 245; Tạ 1984). However, the available prescriptive and descriptive legal sources suggest that the property statutes protected the principle of equal division of household property among sons, limiting daughters' claims to household property.

An Equal Share for Daughters?

Daughters' inheritance rights lie at the crux of discourses on Vietnamese women's inheritance rights. Scholars suggest that the Lê dynasty codified long-standing indigenous customs of bilateral kinship practices by guaranteeing that “brothers and sisters would share equally in their parents' general estate” (Tạ 1981, 123). Such a guarantee represents to some scholars an inherent difference between Vietnamese and Chinese law. This interpretation of Article 388 of the Lê Code permeates the scholarship on Vietnamese and Southeast Asian history and bolsters the claim that Vietnamese cultural patterns differed fundamentally from those of the Chinese (Haines 1984; Lê 1975; Reid 1988; Trần 2000; Yu 1990). Article 388, however, did not guarantee daughters an equal portion of household property but simply established a mechanism for the acceptance of the fire and incense property:

The statute only required that brothers and sisters divide household property “among themselves” (tương phân 相 分). If the law did, in fact, establish that the siblings should divide the household property equally, the statute would have used the phrase “to divide equally” (quân phân 勻 分). Thus, the statute can only be understood in the most general terms: that siblings of a household could divide the household property among themselves. Though the statute established a mechanism for siblings to divide household property, the statute privileged parental will. Because the statute prioritized the parents' wishes, the condition that siblings divide the household property came into play only in the absence of a will and testament. At the very least, we can say that the law that has so often been used as evidence for the claim that daughters enjoyed equal inheritance rights did not decree it. Although my interpretation of the law differs from that of previous scholars, my translations do not. Déloustal (1910, 500), Nguyễn and Tạ (1987, 203), and Yu (1990, 99) provide similar translations. Despite the ambiguity of the statute, they and their readers conclude remarkable implications for Vietnamese gender relations. Given that Article 388 remains at best ambiguous about daughters' claims to household property, alternative sources must be consulted to elucidate the matter.

Statutes and case law set forth in the Book of Good Government from the Hồng Dưc Reign (Hồng Đức Thiện Chính Thư 洪德善政), a collection of statutes and legal cases compiled in the sixteenth century, suggest that Lê dynasty law protected the principle of equal division of household property for sons and limited daughters' claims. One statute specified,

This regulation specified that brothers (huynh-đệ 兄弟) enjoyed the right to equal division of household property and ignored the claims of daughters. The characters used to designate brothers—elder brother (huynh 兄) and younger brother (đệ 弟)—can only refer to sons in a household. Nguyễn Sĩ Giắc (1959, 24) translates this statute as “older brothers and younger siblings” (anh-em) in modern Vietnamese, which may account for the interpretation that daughters shared in this claim. However, the text of the statute clearly excluded sisters from this right.

Other statutes included in the chapter on landed property in the Book of Good Government also ignored daughters' claims in the division of household property, confirming that the principles of equal division of household property only applied to sons. One statute proscribed family feuding over the division of household property and clearly delineated to whom the principles of equal division applied:

This statute simply refers to the elder brothers' and younger brothers' duty (huynh đệ 兄弟) to divide the property equally (quân phân 勻分) without conflict. The absence of daughters suggests that they were not considered relevant players in the process. Another statute placed the responsibility of overseeing the division of household property on the eldest son. In instances in which parents passed away before dividing the family property, the statute decreed that “the will and testament (chúc thư văn khế 囑 書 文 契) be entrusted to the eldest son (trưởng nam 長 男) [to administer]; his portion [of the property] must be equal to that of the rest of the sons (chúng tử 眾子)” (HDTCT, 38). The phrase chúng tử (眾 子) can only be translated as “the rest of the sons” in this instance. If the statute applied to daughters, then the female modifier (nữ 女) would have been used. Moreover, in the chapter on mourning rites in the same document, the text mentions the duties of the chúng tử (眾 子) and their wives, suggesting that the phrase only refers to sons in that document. A corollary statute obliged parents to divide household property fairly so that “the sons and grandsons' (tử tôn 子 孫) portions of the landed property is not equal (bất quân 不勻), with one son having much and another having little; then [one] may use that reason to establish a new will and testament” (HDTCT, 40). The language of the statute reflects the logic of the code: to protect the property claims of sons and grandsons.

The most convincing evidence contradicting the equal share claim involves a statute in the Book of Good Government that limited a daughter's property claims against her half-brother's claims. This is the only instance in which a regulation specified that a daughter should inherit a portion of the household property equal to that of her brother. The statute regulated the division of household property in the case of widow remarriage, providing hypothetical scenarios for the woman's children to inherit and divide her and her late husband's property. In one scenario, the statute specified the procedure if the woman conceived a son in the first marriage and a daughter in the second marriage. In that instance, “upon the latter husband's (hậu phu 後 夫) death, the ‘fire and incense’ property shall be returned to his daughter and cannot be returned to the first husband's son to succeed (tự 嗣)” (HDTCT, 55). The logic behind this provision is clear: The child of another man, the first husband's son, could not succeed the second husband. Allowing another man's son to succeed one's ancestral property would create disorder (loạn 亂) with respect to the ancestral offerings. Thus, the daughter might accept the fire and incense property and maintain the spiritual sacrifices for her father during her own lifetime, after which time she must return it to father's lineage. The statute continues, “As for the mother's property, [it] shall be divided in two, the first husband's son to receive one portion and the latter husband's daughter to receive one portion” (HDTCT, 55). Although the statute dictated that this daughter's share be equal to that of her brother's, when read with the previous clause, it specifically limited her claim to household property:

Thus, when a woman had a son upon remarriage, the son of the second marriage acquired all of her property. However, if the woman gave birth to a daughter in the second marriage, the daughter had to split that portion of the mother's property with her half brother: the son of the first husband. The two portions of the regulation explicitly limited a daughter's claim to her mother's property. Thus, in this single instance in which equal division is mentioned between a brother and a sister, the statute limited a daughter's claim to household property severely.

Daughters' Inheritance Rights in Practice

The preceding discussion demonstrates that the Lê Code's statutes on inheritance were intended to guarantee sons an equal share of household property. Article 388 of the Lê Code, which has often been cited as evidence to support the interpretation that daughters enjoyed equal inheritance rights, at best allowed daughters to inherit some of the household property in the absence of parental will and testament. That said, the testaments themselves can reveal more about inheritance practices than the prescriptive legal sources. A volume of records titled Ancient Wills and Testaments (Chúc thư văn khế cựu chỉ 囑 書 文 契 旧 指) indicates that daughters did not enjoy the right of equal division of household property in practice.

Example 1: Vũ Văn Bần and Trương Thị Loan

Vũ Văn Bân and his principal wife, Trương Thị Loan, issued a testament in the eighth year of Cảnh Hưng (1748) to make clear their wishes for the distribution of their property to three children (CTVKCC, 1748). The eldest son, Vũ Đức Thắng, was their biological son, whereas the second son, Vũ Văn Liễn, and the daughter, Vũ Thị Hợp, were the children of a concubine, though it is unclear whether the two were born of the same woman. The couple carefully designated the source of the property: The couple's property was divided into that earmarked for the maintenance of ancestral rites (hương hỏa điền sản 香 火 田 產); that originating from the father (phụ điền sản 父 田 產) and the mother (mẫu điền sản 母 田 產); and the portion of “newly purchased-property” (thủy mại điền 始買田). In this family, the principal wife, Trương Thị Loan, had brought an unusually large amount of property to the marriage. As table 1 details, the eldest son, Vũ Đức Thắng, received four times the amount of property that the daughter received, while the second son, Vũ Văn Liễn, received three times as much property as the daughter. The amount that the eldest son received for the fire and incense property roughly conforms to the specification that one-twentieth of the property be reserved for the ancestral rites (4.4 percent instead of 5 percent). If we subtract the amount of property earmarked for the hương hỏa property (0.69 mẫu) and the dowry absorbed into the eldest son's property (from his wife) (0.7 mẫu, not displayed in this chart), then the two sons were promised roughly equal amounts of household property (6.49 mẫu and 5.99 mẫu, respectively). However, the daughter received remarkably less property than her brothers: 1.83 mẫu, or approximately 12 percent of the household property.

In the foregoing example, the two sons received roughly equivalent amounts of household property, whereas the daughter received considerably less property than her brothers.

The text of the testament suggests several features of the power dynamics within this family. First, although neither the second son nor the daughter was the natural child of the principal wife, the second son was represented in the testament as if he were her son (their relationship is referenced as mẫu-tử 母子). However, the daughter was represented simply as the daughter of a concubine (their relationship is referenced as đích-mẫu-nữ tử 嫡母女子). In this family, then, a son's standing was related to his gender, whereas the daughter's standing was related to her mother's status as a concubine. Second, on the last page of the testament, the parents, witnesses, and children acknowledged the validity of the document with a signature or a joint-print. While the two sons signed for themselves, the daughter's husband's acknowledgment of the validity of the document before her own joint-print suggests that the family viewed the son-in-law as the one with the authority to validate the document. Finally, although conventional wisdom tells us that Vietnamese women enjoyed complete autonomy over the property they brought into the marriage, the division of the principal wife's property suggests that she might not have had much authority over the testament, an issue that I will revisit later.

Example 2: Trương Thị Khanh

Vũ Văn Liễn, the second son of Vũ Văn Bần, passed away within the next ten years, and his mother, the concubine Trương Thị Khanh, promulgated a testament in his name (1762), the specifics of which are detailed in Table 2. Trương Thị Khanh divided her son's property between his natural son and daughter and his adopted son. The eldest son received almost twice as much property as his sister (3.8 mẫu versus 1.8 mẫu). Although the daughter in this family did receive a fair amount of household property, she fell far short of an equal share with the eldest son, her natural brother. Notably, the daughter received an amount of household property slightly smaller than that of the adopted son.

Although Trương Thị Khanh's distribution of her son's property seems a little more equitable than in the previous example, it still suggests that the daughter did not enjoy the same property rights as either her natural brother or her adopted brother.

Example 3: Vũ Xuân Dương

In the sixth year of the Cảnh Thịnh Reign (1798), Vũ Xuân Dương and his principal wife, Bùi Thị [character illegible] promulgated their will and testament, decreeing that their two sons and two daughters follow their will, as detailed in table 3.

In this family, the principal wife brought little or no property to the marriage (there is no distinction). The testament simply detailed the shares of the sons (57.8 percent and 38.4 percent) and grandsons (1.9 percent and 1.9 percent), excluding the daughters. Moreover, neither the wife nor daughters acknowledged the validity of the document with her print, suggesting that in this family, the women enjoyed little or no authority over household property.

The foregoing examples suggest that in practice, as in the law, daughters were not guaranteed equal inheritance rights. Although the prescriptive legal sources allowed daughters to inherit from the family estate, their parents enjoyed ultimate control over their claims. That the Lê Code allowed daughters to inherit may have simply meant that daughters might receive a dowry, a practice that was common in imperial China. Moreover, legal practice suggests that a daughter's ability to inherit property was related to her mother's status within the family. Statutes from the Book of Good Government reveal that the state was interested in protecting the rights of sons and grandsons to an equal share of family property, thereby putting to rest any notion that daughters enjoyed that claim. Samuel Baron's eighteenth-century observations support this conclusion:

Seeing that the Lê Code did not decree an equal division law for brothers and sisters, we can no longer consider it as evidence of Vietnamese lawmakers' attempt to protect women's rights in the early modern period.

Wives' Rights: Ownership, Autonomy, and Authority

A second claim made to support the “autonomy thesis” with respect to Vietnamese women's property rights is that during the Lê dynasty, wives enjoyed complete right of ownership and authority over the property they brought into a marriage (Tạ 1981; Yu 1990). Though it is true that wives maintained ownership rights over their property on paper, it is less clear how much the recognition of that ownership played out in their daily lives. In the Lê Code, a wife's claim over her property came into play only when her husband died or when the marriage was dissolved. A careful reading of the Lê Code, as well as evidence from the testamentary records, suggest that women may not have had much authority over the property they brought into a marriage. Their claims and authority over property were intricately linked to their ability to represent themselves within the confines of local moral expectations.

Within the Marital Unit

There is little evidence to suggest that wives maintained authority over the property they brought into a marriage while their husbands were still alive. The Lê Code is especially silent about these issues, requiring close examination of other sources. The wills and testaments cited earlier suggest that wives did not maintain authority over their family property. In the first example, the daughter's husband acknowledged the validity of the document before the daughter, but the document did not require the sons' wives' acceptance. The son-in-law's acknowledgment suggests that local practice regarded him as the one with claim over that property. Moreover, the principal wife divided her property almost equally between her natural son and the son of a concubine. Although it is possible, it seems improbable that she would have given her family's property to a concubine's son—the child in the most likely position to challenge her own son's status—if she had complete control over her own property. Finally, within the document, the dowry given to the family for the eldest son's marriage was earmarked for the son, not for his bride. In the second example, although Trương Thị Khanh was able to promulgate the testament in lieu of her deceased son, the testament had to be written and approved by the village head. Finally, in the third example, except for a mention of the principal wife's name in the preface to the testament, she and her daughters do not appear in the text, nor did the document require their authentication. Though the evidence is far from conclusive, I would tentatively argue that women's control over the property they brought into a marriage might not have been as complete as previously suggested. It is likely that the property a woman brought into a marriage was controlled by her husband until his death.

Widowhood

Upon her husband's death, a woman's claim over household property increased manifold. The Lê Code bequeathed a widow custodial power over the property earmarked for her children. Although the Lê Code did not specifically address her claims over her husband's property, it did recognize her children's claims against those of a second wife:

Here, then, there is no mention of a wife's authority over her husband's property upon his death but a recognition of the children's claims to that property. Although the statute included no direct link to a widow's property rights, we can infer that the state's protection of her child's claims to her property reflects a de facto claim she maintained over her familial property, even after her death.

In protecting a deceased wife's property, the state also provided limited protection of her contribution to the accrual of household property. The commentary to Article 374 reads,

The logic behind these provisions protected a deceased wife's children and their property from the reaches of a second wife. However, the wording of the commentary clause distinguishes between the rights of a deceased husband and a wife. Upon the first wife's death, the statute specified that her portion of the newly created property was to be given to her husband's children. This stipulation allowed the sons of concubines to receive part of the first wife's property. A “husband's children” referred to any natural children, including those of later wives or concubines. Thus, a deeper examination of the statute reveals that although the property that a woman inherited from her parents was protected against the claims of “outsiders,” her claims over property that she acquired was not afforded such protection. Men's property, however, could not be transferred to any child but his own, revealing the patrilineal logic of the code.

In theory, as mothers, women enjoyed the right to pass on their familial property to their children, and both the Lê Code and Book of Good Government recognized their claim to that property even after marriage. Even while recognizing a wife's ownership over property, the prescriptive legal sources limited a woman's authority over it. Legal practice also demonstrates that a married woman's property was effectively absorbed by her husband. A woman's authority over her property, the evidence suggests, generally increased following her husband's death, but only so long as she could demonstrate sexual fidelity to her husband.

Sonless Widows

The Lê Code acknowledged that the property that a woman brought into the marriage and a wife's contribution to the “newly created property” gave her ownership rights over that property. For sonless couples, Article 374 stipulated that the surviving spouse held custodial power over one-half of the deceased spouse's ancestral property and two-thirds of his or her portion of the newly created property:

The first clear exception to the foregoing statute indicates that the regulation was void if the parents of the deceased were alive. In that case, the property presumably returned to them.

On the surface, a widow enjoyed the same claims over her deceased husband's property as her husband would over hers. However, the commentary to the statute limited a widow's authority over her husband's property: Her claim was inextricably linked to her demonstration of sexual fidelity to him. It specified that the deceased spouse's ancestral property be divided into two equal parts, one to be entrusted to the surviving spouse and the other to maintain the deceased spouse's tombs and ancestral rites, to be entrusted to his or her lineage. However, there was a clear difference between a widow and widower's claim over his or her deceased spouse's property. If the woman remarried, she forfeited any custodial power over that property:

In the Lê Code, then, we see that a sonless widow's custodial power over her husband's estate was linked to her demonstration of fidelity to him. New local evidence suggests, however, that the law circumscribed her claims over her own property as well.

The Secret [Manual] for Adjudicating Cases (Công Án Tra Nghiệm bí pháp 公 案 查 驗 秘 法), which contained instructions to magistrates for adjudicating property disputes, reveals that in local practice, Vietnamese women's property claims were more tenuous than the state legal sources suggest. Dated 1711, the manual instructed magistrates that

These instructions suggest that a sonless widow did have a limited choice. If she demonstrated sexual fidelity to her husband, then she could gain custodial control over her husband's property and participate in the choosing of his heir. Thus, a woman who could represent herself as a chaste widow could exercise influence in choosing her husband's heir. However, if she chose to remarry, she forfeited custodial power over his property and claim over her own dowry (trang liêm 粧奩). This choice remained viable only for women who stood to control a considerable amount of property after the husband's death. For others living on the margins of survival, remarriage likely presented the best alternative to starvation.

Ironically, sonless widows claimed more authority over their deceased husband's property than those with children. Although the inability to give birth to male heirs made a sonless widow's position vulnerable during the husband's lifetime, after his death, she enjoyed greater potential autonomy. Widows with sons, at best, enjoyed custodial power over their deceased husband's property until the son's maturity. However, a sonless widow controlled much of the household property if she could demonstrate sexual fidelity to her late husband. Moreover, she could hope to participate in designating an heir for her husband. By designating an heir for her deceased husband, a woman created a kinship tie between the man and the heir. Aside from adopting an heir, women had relatively few alternatives to lay claim over their property. These restrictions created spaces of opportunity for women to assert their preference.

Some women who demonstrated particular piety (a mixture of fidelity to a late husband and monetary donations to the community) gained important roles in the community as they transferred their property to local institutions and ensured local recognition of their worthiness. By transferring private property to communal institutions, some women could assert authority over household property and ensure that their ancestral rites were maintained within the confines of the property regime. To see how the endowment of village stelae became sites of negotiation for women, we now turn to the issue of female succession in Vietnamese society.

Succession: Remnants of a Bilateral Tradition?

Many claims about Vietnamese women's uniqueness and the Lê Code's preservation of women's autonomy rely on the argument that a daughter's ability to succeed her father reflects remnants of bilateral kinship patterns common in the rest of Southeast Asia (Taylor 1983; Yu 1999). A reexamination of the Lê Code and legal cases relating to succession reveals, however, that the law complied with the principles of patrilineal succession. If a daughter inherited her father's succession property, she could only keep it in her lifetime; upon her death, the property and the religious duties associated with it returned to her father's lineage, precluding her from passing the maintenance of those duties to her children, male or female.

Despite these legal restrictions on women's ability to succeed their parents, some women did find a way to ensure their claim over property in perpetuity. By doing so, they engaged in a succession practice that did not fit patrilineal or bilateral patterns. This process, which I call the endowment of local succession, allowed women to transfer property to a communal institution—usually the village temple or a pagoda—in return for a promise to maintain her ancestral rites in perpetuity. Ironically, by transferring private property toward a communal institution, women could lay claim over that property and the rituals associated with it, guaranteeing a stronger hold over that property once transferred. The practice of endowing local succession demonstrates the complexity of succession in Vietnamese society, and the inappropriateness of labeling Vietnamese succession patterns “bilateral” for categorical convenience.

Succession and the Lê Code

One reason that scholars of Vietnamese and Southeast Asian history have coded Vietnamese succession patterns as “bilateral” rests in a statute allowing daughters to succeed to the fire and incense property in the absence of male heirs (Wolters 1999, 15). However, the statutes regulating succession in the Lê Code and related case records demonstrate that law did not codify bilateral succession but rather protected the principles of patrilineal succession. One edict promulgated in 1463 decreed that of the parents' landed property, one-twentieth would be set aside to maintain the ancestral rites (QTHL, art. 388). The following edict recorded in the Lê Code, promulgated in the third year of the Hồng Thuận reign (1511), clearly specified the order for succession (QTHL, art. 389). It detailed that maintenance of the ancestral rites would first go to the eldest son of the principal wife (đích thê chi tử 嫡 妻 之 子) and then to his son (trưởng tôn 長 孫). In the absence of grandsons, the right to succeed went to the next son of the principal wife (thứ nam 次 男). Then, should the principal wife not have any other sons (đích thê hựu vô chúng tử 嫡 妻 又 無 眾 子), a suitable son of a concubine (thiếp tử chi hiền 妾 子 之 賢) could be chosen to succeed the father. Finally, in instances in which the eldest son or grandson was deemed unfit (or unable) to perform the ancestral duties, then the law allowed the father's (male) relatives to choose an appropriate heir of the same generation, subject to the magistrate's approval (QTHL, art. 389). Daughters remained conspicuously absent from the line of successors. The absence of daughters in the succession line reflects the code's patrilineal logic. The Book of Good Government described that this logic adhere to the theory that “the fire and incense lands and ponds [were intended] to be kept for generations; [with regard to] maintaining them, if there is no son, the clan may keep them to maintain the ancestral rites and may not divide them among themselves” (HDTCT, 37). If the statutes recorded in the Lê Code did not guarantee daughters' succession rights, then how did other scholars infer a tradition of bilateral succession?

The inference that the Lê state codified a long-standing tradition of bilateral succession appears to have been derived from an edict promulgated in 1517. This edict decreed that “[With regard to] entrusting the ‘fire and incense’ property, if there is an eldest son, then he shall be used. If there is not an eldest son, then the eldest daughter shall be used (dụng trưởng nữ 用 長 女)” (QTHL, art. 391). On the surface, this edict appears to grant daughters unusual rights with regard to succession. However, it should be read with respect to the previous regulation, ordering a strict line of successors. Only in the last case, when a suitable son could not be found, could a daughter succeed. Precedents included in the Lê Code and in the Book of Good Government weakened the daughter's right to succeed to the fire and incense property. For example, in dealing with the same issue, the Book of Good Government expressed the law as follows: “[With regard to] maintaining the ‘fire and incense’ property, if there is no eldest son, then the eldest daughter is to be used to maintain the rites. [The property] is to be used to support her for one generation; then, it shall be returned to the patriline, as is precedent (lệ 例)” (HDTCT, 37). If daughters could only maintain this property in their lifetime, then the logic of the law could not be one of bilateral succession. The term “bilateral succession” suggests the equal claim of a male or female descendant to transfer property and duties associated with the property to a designated heir. However, if a daughter's claim to the property and duties associated with it lasted only within her lifetime, then she simply performed the duties instead of a male heir.

Other statutes on succession in both the Lê Code and the Book of Good Government severely restricted a daughter's ability to succeed her parents. In one substatute, the Lê Code stated that in instances in which the eldest son only had a daughter, then the fire and incense property would be returned to the second son's sons and grandchildren so that they could sustain the patriline (QTHL, art. 391). Thus, even though the eldest did not have a son, the fire and incense property did not go to his daughter but to his brother's son. However, if the second son only had daughters, then the property would be transferred to the eldest son's daughter. That the daughter would have been able to inherit property was not related to her standing as a female but to her standing as the child of the eldest son; therefore, her position in the family outranked the second son's daughters. Upon her death, the property would be returned to the second son's daughters, and upon their deaths, the property would be returned to the father's lineage. The rules assumed that male children transmitted the family line, while daughters maintained it. The extinction of the patriline upon the death of the last female child of the father suggests the patrilineal logic of the law.

Succession in Practice

The preceding statutes, as well as a case cited in the Book of Good Government, suggest that Lê dynasty law protected a man's fraternal nephews' property claims against his daughter, a phenomenon that was common during the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the second year of the Quang Thuận reign, 1461, the official Vũ Chỉ Đường presented a memorial describing his adjudication of a number of cases regarding succession in his district. In clear-cut cases—that is, those in which there were no possible male heirs—he ordered that a daughter be allowed to succeed the father. However, he reported that in ambiguous cases, a standard should be set. He reported that

Vũ Chỉ Đường decided that the claim to succession would be returned (kế hoàn 計 還) to the second and third son's son. He ordered, “When designating a successor (lập đích 立 嫡), a member of the same surname (đồng tính 同 姓) must be used; it is forbidden to designate one of a different lineage” (HDTCT, 12). By returning the fire and incense property to the other sons' sons, Chỉ Đường effectively set a precedent for designating an heir, prompting the following edict: “When selecting an heir (lập đích 立 嫡), [it is] required that one of the same patriline [be selected]; it is forbidden to select one from a different surname (dị tính 異 姓) to perform the ancestral rites, and cause disorder (loạn 亂) in the lineage” (HDTCT, 14). The logic behind the code allowing daughters to succeed in the absence of male heirs, demonstrated by the statutes regarding succession, rests in the maintenance of the ancestral rites for one last generation. Although the statutes recorded in the Lê Code and the Book of Good Government suggests that Lê dynasty law codified patrilineal succession, in practice, some women could lay claim over household and succession properties in perpetuity. They did so by transferring familial property to local institutions that could guarantee the transmission of the ritual obligations tied to that property in perpetuity.

Toward an Alternative Model: The Endowment of Local Succession

The endowment of local succession, which entailed the transfer of household property and spiritual duties associated with that property to a local institution, reflects strategies that some women employed to lay claim over their property. This process of transferring property from private hands for communal use—usually through cash and land donations to village religious and nonreligious institutions—was marked with the erection of a stone or bronze stele commemorating the donor's generosity and detailing the obligations of the village toward the donor. In his journal, the French missionary François Deydier (1668, 17) records that the practice was common by the seventeenth century, with villages devoting fifteen to twenty days of worship to their donors. The stelae commemorating these donors generally included signatures of all significant males in the village attesting to the validity of the contract between donor and community. Ink rubbings made from these inscriptions reveal that many women—as only daughters or sonless widows—transferred property to the village to ensure that their rites were maintained. That these women could not transmit such duties to their daughters suggests that the law and local custom circumscribed their ability to do so. Some women convinced (male) village heads to elect them as village patronesses and supported that demonstration of piety with the donation of cash and real property. The erection of a stelae commemorating the donation literally marked sites of contestation within the property regime.

Bia Hậu (碑後), Succession Stelae

The erection of stelae to commemorate events, virtuous deeds, or honors bestowed by the ruler allows rare glimpses into historical trends. The succession stelae discussed here marked the virtuous deeds of such donors and served as a contract between a donor and the village community. Although this research is still preliminary, the evidence suggests that sonless women chose this alternative method of succession. The following examples of women who used these mechanisms illustrate the process whereby some negotiated the boundaries of the state legal regime to acquire control over family property.

Example 1: The Widow Lê Thị Toàn

In the thirty-ninth year of the Chính Hòa reign (1778), Lê Thị Toàn received special recognition for her contribution to the village communal house (đình, 亭) (Ms. 2003-08). A stele commemorating her contribution and representing the contract to the agreement recorded that Mrs. Toàn, the widow and principal wife of Chu Văn Thế, having raised three daughters to adulthood, decided to devote her life to Buddhism in her final years. Fearing that her husband's brothers' sons might one day lay claim over the household property, Mrs. Toàn entered into a contract with the village community. She donated 180 string of cash (quán 貫) to purchase lumber for renovating the village communal house and two mẫu of arable land to be considered as the fire and incense property for the maintenance of the couple's rites in perpetuity (thật điền nhị mẫu phó canh chủng cúng hương hỏa hậu sự 實 田 貳 畝 付 與 更 種 供 香 火 後 事). The two mẫu of arable land entrusted to the village was to be rotated within the village for cultivation (luân thứ 輪 次). Each year, the cultivator would be responsible for providing four platters of wine, one piece of silver, and one hundred flowers for the maintenance of the rites (Ms. 2005). The decision to guarantee Lê Thị Toàn that her and her late husband's rites would be maintained in perpetuity was decided by the (male) elders of the village (hương lão 鄉老) and signed by the village head, local magistrate, and five men representing the village elders (Ms. 2004).

In this example, Lê Thị Toàn had three daughters who could have maintained her rites for one last generation. However, she chose to transfer the fire and incense property to the local community. Without disavowing Mrs. Toàn's faith, generosity, and piety, her decision to enter into this agreement with the village community suggests a recognition that it was the only way she could maintain claim over that property. By convincing the village elders of her virtue and bolstering that image with real monetary and land contributions, she bypassed the claims of her husband's relatives and ensured that the maintenance of rites for her husband and herself would be local practice. Once the local magistrate, the entire council of elders, and village heads agreed to this exchange, it would have been difficult for any family to dispute the validity of the contract.

Mrs. Toàn's decision to endow the local community with the duties of succession suggests that the restrictions on her and her daughters' private lives led her to find a mechanism to guarantee her property rights. The transferring of property to the local community for perpetual maintenance of ancestral rites suggests that Mrs. Toàn's daughters, in custom and in law, could not pass on those duties. Because of these restrictions, Mrs. Toàn carved out a prominent economic and religious position for herself in local society. The erection of the stele served as a public sign of her claim over the property and position as patron spirit of the locale. Moreover, her cash and land contributions served as real economic gains to the village community. Thus, as we see in Mrs. Toàn's case, restrictions in customary and state law led to a rather visible and important role in village economic and religious life.

Example 2: Vũ Thị Đồn

In the fourteenth year of the Vĩnh Thịnh (永 盛) reign (1718), the widow Vũ Thị Đồn, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Vũ [name illegible], entered into a contract with the village community. In exchange for fifty string of cash and one mẫu of land, the village elders agreed to “elect” her parents to the group of village spirits (hậu thần 后神), and the stele commemorating this event would be placed beside her late husband's burial stone in the Nguyễn family compound. The text of this agreement does not mention her husband by name, only that she was the daughter in law of the Nguyễn family, and that the relatives from hers and her husband's side guaranteed that they would honor and respect this agreement (bản phường nội ngoại thượng hạ đẳng tôn bảo 本 坊 内 外 上 下 等 尊 保). The erection of this stele and the hamlet's agreement to honor the agreement ensured that the parents of Vũ Thị Đồn would enjoy maintenance of their rites in perpetuity. Just as in the previous example, the local magistrate and twenty males of the Vũ and Nguyễn surnames acknowledged the validity of the contract (Ms. 6355).

Although less detailed than the previous example, the case of Vũ Thị Đồn's donation to the village community suggests that she also chose to endow local succession to ensure that her parents' rites would be observed. Mrs. Đồn's donation ensured that her parent's rites would be maintained in perpetuity, suggesting that as their female heir, she could not fully maintain or transfer her parents' ancestral rites. Thus, Mrs. Đồn employed a strategy similar to that of Mrs. Toàn: She transferred property to the village community in exchange for a promise of perpetual maintenance of rites for herself and her parents and lay claim over that property in perpetuity.

Example 3: Đào Thị Ngọc Bằng

In the twentieth year of the Chính Hòa reign (1699), Đào Thị Ngọc Bằng donated 200 string of cash and 120 mẫu of arable land to the village in exchange for the maintenance of her grandmother's and parents' rites in perpetuity. The stele records that her grandmother, Nguyễn Thị Quý, was a woman of particular talent and virtue whose incomparable artistic ability earned her the affection of an important member of the Trịnh family, then the ruling family in the northern Vietnamese realm, with whom she had a daughter and a son. The daughter subsequently married a general of the surname Đào, with whom she had the donor, Đào Thị Ngọc Bằng (Ms. 3594). In order to fulfill her duties of filial piety, Đào Thị Ngọc Bằng promised the village of Trà Lâm 200 string of cash and 120 mẫu of superior arable land (nhẫm điền 稔 田), in return for which the village would maintain the rites for her grandmother and parents in perpetuity (Ms. 3994).³ The cash donated would pay for the land and materials to erect the stele, and the land donated regarded as village communal property. Perhaps because of the size of the donation, the village and its eight hamlets, the local magistrate, and “all the villagers” agreed that henceforth, the maintenance of ancestral rites for the aforementioned would be regarded as village regulation (Trà Lâm xã, bát giáp, quan viên, hương trương, dân nhân thượng hạ chiếu như hương khâm 茶 林 扒 甲 官 員 鄉 長 民 人 上 下 照 如 鄉 欽) (Ms. 3596). The local magistrate, village headmen, and fifty other prominent men in the village witnessed the contract (Ms. 3595). Đào Thị Ngọc Bằng's case raises interesting issues about the matter of succession more generally. Here is an instance in which a daughter in a sonless family transferred a large amount of property to the village in return for a communal pledge to maintain rites for her grandmother and parents. Đào Thị Ngọc Bằng's ability to fulfill her filial duties could only be done by ensuring the maintenance of ancestral rites.

The preceding examples describe in detail a more general pattern of the endowment of succession by sonless widows.⁴ Though it remains unclear why records for the endowment of local succession survive mostly survive from after the seventeenth century, their existence suggests an alternative way of thinking about succession in early modern Vietnamese society. The texts of the stelae represent the event as a particularly virtuous act each donor took but also note the duties that the villages would take upon itself by accepting the cash and land donations. In all of these instances, the village accepted the duties of maintaining the donor's or her ancestors' ancestral rites, suggesting that her gender restricted her from fulfilling the duties herself or transmitting them to her children. These examples demonstrate the inappropriateness of labeling Vietnamese succession practices as bilateral. That a woman, if she could lay claim over the fire and incense property at all, could only hold onto it in her lifetime suggests the patrilineal logic of local custom and state law.

Even while their private lives were restricted, there were spaces in which women could challenge local custom and legal practice. The erection of these stelae mark such sites of contestation, whereby women bypassed state law and local custom and lay claim over that property publicly, carving out a sphere of economic and religious influence over local society. Although some observers might infer that these negotiations between the women and the structures of the property regime suggest evidence for the autonomy thesis in early modern Vietnamese society, I would argue that the practice of the endowment of local succession was an exception and helps prove the rule of patrilineal succession. That women had to endow local institutions in order to lay claim over private family property suggests that the prevailing custom and precedent prevented them from doing so. These endowments should be read as strategies to circumvent the restrictions that state law and local custom placed upon women's property claims and not as evidence of long-standing cultural features of national or regional coherence.

Conclusion

This paper has challenged claims that women in Southeast Asia enjoyed more autonomy than their counterparts in East and South Asia through an examination of Vietnamese women's property rights in the early modern period. Past scholarship has relied on Lê dynasty statutes to claim that women enjoyed unparalleled property rights, including equal claim to household property and the right to succeed one's father. Such apparent gender equality, scholars argue, reflects remnants of a bilateral cultural tradition attributed to a uniquely Vietnamese or Southeast Asian identity. Although this particular narrative permeates the scholarship on Vietnamese and Southeast Asian studies, little research has examined them critically. Women's property claims during the Lê dynasty were much more nuanced, however.

I argue that the Lê Code did not accord daughters and wives equal property rights with sons and husbands but rather limited their claims. The regulations, as set forth by the Lê Code, the Book of Good Government, magistrates' manuals, and testamentary records, demonstrate that the property regime sought to provide sons with the right to equal division to household property and to maintain succession along agnatic lines. Although in extreme circumstances a daughter might succeed her father, in law as well as in practice, magistrates preferred to return the property to his patriline. The autonomy thesis, as applied in the Vietnamese context, extends to wives' property rights in the early modern period. Just as in the case of daughters' property rights, wives' authority over their and their husband's property were complex. Though earlier scholarship suggests that wives held complete authority over the property they brought into a marriage, extant testamentary records from the Lê dynasty suggest that this authority was restricted while the husband was still alive. Wives' claims over their own property, much less their husbands' property, were linked to their ability to demonstrate worthiness in local society. This worthiness could come by representing oneself as a chaste widow or as generous and pious member of the local community. The statutes set forth in the Lê Code and the Book of Good Government clearly designate that the Lê dynasty property and case law sought to ensure that succession maintained in the patriline. That a daughter could only claim custodial power over the fire and incense property in her lifetime suggests the lineal logic of the law.

Although the available documentary evidence suggests that the Lê dynasty property regime did not codify long-standing traditions of bilateral succession, some women found ways of circumventing the legal restrictions to ensure the maintenance of their rites. Within these restrictive measures on their private lives, they employed strategies to ensure their claims over property, particularly in the absence of male heirs. Widows and only daughters transferred private property to public institutions in return for a pledge that the village would maintain the rites for the said donor or her ancestors in perpetuity. By entering into these contracts, women bypassed the claims of their husbands' relatives to the property. Their donations ensured that they played major roles in village economic and religious life. The maintenance of those rites, too, meant that those donors entered into the pantheon of spirits that each village had an obligation to appease for generations. Though this paper has focused on the practical gains that women's endowment of local succession had on their claims to property, the spiritual dimensions of these transactions should not be underestimated.⁵ If a woman's duties to maintain her ancestors' and her own rites extinguished with her death, then her own spirit died as well. The endowment of local succession, then, guaranteed women and their ancestors an afterlife as well.

Although some readers may infer that the endowment of local succession supports the autonomy thesis, I would argue that it is an exception that proves the prevalence of patrilineal inheritance in early modern Vietnamese society. The evidence suggests that women employed this strategy to maintain hold over household property that might have otherwise been returned to the patriline. These stelae should be interpreted as sites of contestation between women who negotiated the restrictive measures of the property regime to guarantee the maintenance of their ancestral rites.

Vietnamese Women at the Crossroads of Asia

This case study has suggested important implications for the study of gender in East and Southeast Asia. In East Asian studies, scholars of Korean and Chinese women's history make similar arguments about the links between women's property rights, culture, and national identity. Some scholars of Korean women's history suggest that traditional Korean inheritance practices reflected bilateral cultural patterns that pre-date Chinese influence. (Deuchler 1992, 45; Peterson 1996, 202). In Chinese women's history, the late Japanese scholar Niida Noboro draws from the Koryō and Lê dynasty examples to suggest that the Song “half-share law” reflected broader inheritance patterns in East Asia (Niida 1965, 330). Niida argues that the Song law “was later forgotten” (129), suggesting that it reveals a “long-standing custom of the Huai and Yangtze valley” (130). Niida's argument implies that East Asian cultures traditionally afforded women unparalleled property rights, rights that were rescinded with the advent of Confucian ideologies. The evidence presented in this paper suggests, however, that the links between Lê dynasty property law and broader claims about women's property claims in East Asia should be reexamined.

The Vietnamese case has even greater implications for the study of gender in Southeast Asia. Scholars of the region often rely on evidence from the Lê dynasty statutes to suggest that even Confucianized Vieệtnam retained an essentially Southeast Asian pattern of high levels of women's autonomy, as evidenced by equal property rights they enjoyed. This claim appears to be no longer tenable. However, that one of the long-held theories supporting this model, the rights of Vietnamese women with respect to property, is easily challenged suggests that the autonomy thesis should be reexamined for other societies within Southeast Asia.⁶

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Katherine Bernhardt, Li Tana, Anthony Reid, Geoffrey Robinson, Matthew Sommer, Michael Szonyi, Chi Truong, Tracy Barrett, Journal of Asian Studies editors Ann Waltner and Kenneth George, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on various versions of this paper.

Notes

List of References