Why Could a Husband in Ancient China Divorce His Wife for Talking Too Much?

In Tang dynasty China, a husband could send his wife back to her parents for seven reasons, and talking too much was one of them. But the same law code gave wives three ways to stop him, and a husband who broke those protections faced a hundred strokes with the heavy rod. The divorce papers that ordinary couples actually signed tell a different story. 00:00 The Seven Reasons 01:09 Why Talkativeness Made the List 03:10 Three Ways to Stop Him 05:31 How Marriages Were Made 07:55 The Divorce Papers 09:20 Found in a Desert Cave 📌 SOURCES: Jacques Gernet, "A History of Chinese Civilization" (1996) Johnson, Wallace, trans, "The Tang Code: Volume One: General Principles" (1979) Johnson, Wallace and Denis Twitchett , "Criminal Procedure in T'ang China", "Asia Major" (1993) Ray Erwin Baber, "Marriage in Ancient China" (1934) Bijia Chen et al., "Interethnic marriage in Northeast China, 1866–1913" (2018) John Fairbank et al., "China: A New History" (2006)