Davis 7 of all stories 1946-2009 1.6 0.8 0.6 0.4 02 0 oogg°goeg %of stories on divorce %of stories on mamriage Figure I.Discussion of marriage and divorce in People's Daily,1946-2009. Source.Renmin ribao(dianziban),1946-2009,http://biscuit.library.yale.edu/. statute and practice therefore,the Revised Law of 2001 echoed and strength- ened the underlying trend toward ever greater privatization and individual- ization throughout contemporary Chinese society (Kong,2011;Yan,2009, 2011). Without access to inner-party debates,I cannot explain the shifting posi- tions among the national elite toward marriage reform.However,by tracking the frequency with which People's Daily,the official paper of the CCP Central Committee,published stories with“marriage'”or“divorce'”in the title between 1946 and 2009,I can roughly trace the rise and fall in the rela- tive importance of marriage as a central concern among those at the apex of national politics.As we see in Figure 1,coverage peaks in the three years after 1949,drops drastically after 1953,and virtually disappears between 1960 and 1979.It then picks up again after the passage of the 1980 Marriage Law,and continues at levels comparable to the mid-1950s.Based on these trends,it appears that official discourse on marriage and/or divorce main- tained a salience for the post-Mao leadership that had been absent in the high- socialist years of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. I turn now to three Supreme People's Court(SPC)interpretations of the Revised Marriage Law.Through examination of these interpretations one Downloaded from mcx.sagepub.com at Yale University Library on June 12,2014Davis 7 statute and practice therefore, the Revised Law of 2001 echoed and strength￾ened the underlying trend toward ever greater privatization and individual￾ization throughout contemporary Chinese society (Kong, 2011; Yan, 2009, 2011). Without access to inner-party debates, I cannot explain the shifting posi￾tions among the national elite toward marriage reform. However, by tracking the frequency with which People’s Daily, the official paper of the CCP Central Committee, published stories with “marriage” or “divorce” in the title between 1946 and 2009, I can roughly trace the rise and fall in the rela￾tive importance of marriage as a central concern among those at the apex of national politics. As we see in Figure 1, coverage peaks in the three years after 1949, drops drastically after 1953, and virtually disappears between 1960 and 1979. It then picks up again after the passage of the 1980 Marriage Law, and continues at levels comparable to the mid-1950s. Based on these trends, it appears that official discourse on marriage and/or divorce main￾tained a salience for the post-Mao leadership that had been absent in the high￾socialist years of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. I turn now to three Supreme People’s Court (SPC) interpretations of the Revised Marriage Law. Through examination of these interpretations one 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 % of all stories 1946-2009 % of stories on divorce % of stories on marriage Figure 1. Discussion of marriage and divorce in People’s Daily, 1946–2009. Source. Renmin ribao (dianziban),1946–2009, http://biscuit.library.yale.edu/. Downloaded from mcx.sagepub.com at Yale University Library on June 12, 2014