Matthew H. Sommer

This unprecedented social history of same-sex union and masculinity in eighteenth-century China is based on more than 1700 legal cases already collected from Chinese archives. This study sheds light on major issues in Chinese history and the comparative history of sexuality: e.g., the social impact of the skewed sex ratio in late imperial China; alternative patterns of sexual practice, alliance, and identity found in different social contexts; and the applicability to China of models of sexuality and "early modernity" derived from European experience.