Degrees of Death: The Hierarchy of Capital Punishments Between Strangulation and Decapitation in Qing China.

Abstract

This article unravels the classification of individuals which operated through the dualism between two execution methods, strangulation and decapitation, during the Qing dynasty. The fundamental difference lay in whether the method of execution preserved the integrity of the corpse. As this factor entailed important moral and metaphysical consequences, there is an uncrossable boundary between the two situations. The confidentiality surrounding the sentence to be carried out was an effort to maintain this boundary, and crossing it, as happened in some cases examined by this paper, was considered a serious breach of justice. Did such a classification mechanism imply a hierarchical relationship between strangulation and decapitation as punishments? The article goes on to address this question, showing that an affirmative answer is as well supported by historical sources as a negative one, and it attempts to reconcile this apparent contradiction.