In contemporary, it is easy through the media reports to understand what is meant “catch adulterer”; but in traditional Chinese society, who was qualified to catch adulterer? The adulterer is limited to a married person? And, in scientific underdevelopment years, how to catch adulterer? It’s difficult to describe the whole traditional social image just by researching the traditional law or the legal files. Fortunately, the classic lithographic pictorial-“DianshizhaiPictorial”, which was published in the last phase of the Qing Dynasty, help us not only restore the image of traditional society, but also portray the image of catch adulterer in traditional society. This paper analyzes ten cases in “Dianshizhai Pictorial”, and found, in traditional Chinese society, neither the act of “catch adulterer” rules the traditional law, nor as conservative as we thought, and usually has a special social control meaning. Furthermore, it’s very different from the catch adulterer image in contemporary society.
Dianshizhai Pictorial、 catch adulterer、 image、 situation、 traditional Chinese law
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