Read the full judgment text of CACV 000023/2000 on BabelCite. This Court of Appeal judgment was delivered on 17 September 1999.
1. Concubines are a relic of China's imperial past. Their survival well into the twentieth century is an anachronism, inconsistent with modern thinking about monogamy, female emancipation and equality of treatment for women. The legal status of concubines now comes before the court again - this time in the latest episode in the saga relating to the estate of a woman who was taken in concubinage in Nationalist China in 1945.