fiction research fun

[rm]

Man, the history of marriage laws in California is deeply bizarre.

(So is trying to sort out all the crazy racist laws of the late 1800s -- gaaaah!)

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I barely scratched the surface of that particular bit of history during my degree and it was enough to make me go omgwtfbbq.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I am freaking out. It was sort of a lark that this story wound up here, and now I'm just engrossed in various horrifying weirdnesses including the legal age of marriage for girls (12 without parental permissions; 7 with, as far as I can find); the fact that multiple redundant laws were passed barring intermarriage of "Mongolians" which referred to Asians in general; and the much higher prevalence than I had realized of footbinding in San Francisco pre-1900.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

@_@ I see what you mean. (I'll be intrigued to know the result of these researches, though.)

[tdanaher.livejournal.com]

How prevalent had you thought footbinding was? I'd always thought it was pretty prevalent pre-1900.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize it came to the US to the degree that it did. I certainly wasn't expected estimates of over 50% of Chinese girls in SF in the 1890s.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

My impression was that it was ubiquitous at the time.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Footbinding originated in the higher classes, as such, I assumed that in an immigrant population where all family members were often needed to work that the rates would be significantly lower -- but they weren't, except in the Chinese sub-groups that had already banned the practice.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Much smaller marriage pool.:(

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

Extraordinary. I've never thought about foot binding at all in relation to the Chinese immigrant population in CA. It simply never occurred to me that they would continue the practice here--especially considering the ratio of men to women being so skewed with the Chinese Exclusion Act.

[contrarywise]

Bloody hell.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I'm really dying to read this story :)

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Racist laws in California continued well into my own lifetime, and it would not surprise me if some were still on the books, though rendered null and void by other State legislation or by Federal statute. Georgia only got around to finally legalising biracial marriage in 2000, so it wouldn't be at all surprising.