In early November 2022, my friend, the psychiatrist Luz González Sánchez, told me she was preparing a presentation on suicide. On the 8th of that month, during a quiet moment, I briefly reviewed some of the types of suicide characteristic of China and sent it to her in case it might be of interest. In fact, I was in the final stages of writing my Secret History of China , and suicides kept appearing in the most diverse circumstances. Ministers and wives who voluntarily buried themselves to accompany the kings in the afterlife, generals who took their own lives to avoid the humiliation of defeat, officials who did so to demonstrate the sincerity of their political ideas, Buddhist monks who cremated themselves as a supreme sacrifice and simultaneously rid themselves of the body that prevented them from reaching nirvana, women who committed suicide for fear of being raped during military campaigns; Widows who ended their lives rather than remarry, and desperate citizens who did so after being designated political enemies during the violence that erupted after the establishment of the communist regime in the 20th century. Most of these stories reflected traditional Chinese culture, showing that the reasons that drove people to take their own lives, their social standing, the setting in which they did it, and even the means used, were also characteristic of this country.

To my surprise, when curiosity prompted me to investigate further, I found no work that addressed the topic in all its complexity. Only a handful of books and academic studies had been dedicated to the suicides of widows during the last dynasty [i] and those of Buddhist monks in medieval China, but none that described and analyzed it within the broad spectrum of Chinese history and culture. There are studies that highlight the importance of suicide in Chinese religion, history, and culture, exploring and analyzing the meaning of life and death for the inhabitants of this country in different historical periods and its consideration under various philosophical and religious systems, but none that incorporates all this information into a single book. J.J. Matignon (1936:61), who devotes a large part of his book to suicide, stated more than 100 years ago: “A considerable volume could be written on suicide in China, for there is probably no other country where this crime is more frequent. It is found in all classes and at all ages [ii] .” 

Materials related to the study of suicide also provide alternative perspectives on certain concepts in Chinese thought or emphasize details that are generally overlooked. Thanks to them, we have more precise ideas about loyalty to the sovereign or husband, sacrifices to beg for rain, violent death as a process of deification, the tragedy of gender-based violence, Taoist techniques of self-destruction, and Buddhist techniques of self-immolation. And above all, they reveal the atmosphere that led millions of people to sacrifice their lives for their ideals, for the good of the people, to leave a good name, or to prevent suffering.

The study of suicide in China is a complex subject, spanning almost 4,000 years and a wide variety of situations, but it is also a fascinating process because it presents the researcher (and the reader) with new and thought-provoking interpretations of history and society, new angles from which to value and understand its religion, and new, often overlooked, data that open new windows into understanding the lives of the people who shaped history. In reality, each facet of suicide presents us with more questions than answers, opening new fields for the study of its culture. Therefore, in this book, my fundamental objective has been to frame the historical facts related to suicide within the religious or cultural aspects that help us understand them, providing the reader with information to understand the reasons why people took their own lives in different historical and social contexts. But books have a life of their own and sometimes take their own path. This is one of these cases, and without being able to deny the evidence that my own work showed me, it became necessary to explain how the Chinese view of suicide was one of the decisive factors in the fall of the Qing dynasty, and with it the imperial regime.

Both historians and specialists in religion or society will discover new perspectives on suicide from which to view their subject of study, facilitating the understanding of archaeology, art, literature, and ritual life, as all these fields have been shaped by suicide. Scholars of Chinese religions already know that violent death, whether in war or by suicide, was central to the creation of dangerous spirits or ghosts. Unlike those who die within the family and become ancestors to protect it, these spirits roam the world, capable of causing disasters for humans. The struggle against and protection from these spirits is the essence of religious practices in China.

The instinct for self-preservation, being one of the strongest in human beings, shrouds everything related to the loss of life in an aura of mystery. It is no coincidence that Albert Camus, in his famous work *The Myth of Sisyphus* (1985:1), postulated, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” And although his assertion can be debated, the importance of this issue is undeniable. The study of suicide allows us to understand the views of life and death held in different cultures, the role of individuals in society, the philosophical and moral ideas that shape life, and the various ways in which people attempt to fit their own existence into these structures. The study of suicide thus allows us to reflect on the great questions of philosophy: the meaning of life, its relationship with the forces of an ever-mysterious afterlife, and a much closer familial and social community. The study of suicide is, therefore, a basic tool for understanding human beings, and the variations on this subject presented in this work are a sample of the original responses that cultures have given to certain problems when approached from different philosophical or religious paradigms.

The study of suicide is, at the same time, the study of death. The most important event in people’s lives and the one that conditions their existence more than any other. And by showing situations that were considered more important than life, this book reveals original cultural and religious processes, considered exotic by a society that, in theory, places the value of life above all else [iii] .

Without going into too much theoretical discussion, in this work we will follow the definition of suicide formulated by the famous French sociologist Émile Durkheim (2005: xlii): “the term suicide applies to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result.”

In his work, Durkheim classified suicide into three categories. Egoistic suicide, which results from an individual’s lack of integration into society or family. Altruistic suicide, which occurs when one takes their own life out of religious or political loyalty, sometimes driven by a sense of duty or mystical enthusiasm; and anomic suicide, which also results from a lack of integration, and produces irritation, disgust against life in general or against groups or individuals in particular (Thomas 2012: 32; Durkheim 2005: 257).

Durkheim (2005: xlv) also pointed out that suicide is a contagious phenomenon, since people with a predisposition to it are easily influenced by suggestion, and that each society values ​​it differently at each historical moment. This is possibly why its conception in traditional Chinese culture is so different from that of classical antiquity or from that of contemporary society.

Today, suicide occupies a central place in society. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 800,000 people die by suicide worldwide each year—twice the number of homicide victims. For every adult who dies by suicide, it is estimated that 20 others have attempted it, and each suicide intimately affects at least six other people. According to the same organization, suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 29, second only to traffic accidents (Trujillo 2021). In Spain, nearly 4,000 people died by suicide in 2024, and suicide is now the leading cause of death from external injuries, and among those under 30, the leading cause of death in absolute terms. It is a major social problem and a source of terrible suffering for the families affected.

In these times of cultural mixing and globalization, with cities where people from all five continents live together, it is more necessary than ever to publicize the special characteristics of Chinese suicide, since broadening the vision of this phenomenon will help to better understand its perception among the Chinese population and in other cultures, its relationship with economic, political and social changes, as well as the historical and cultural forces that led certain people in the past to end their lives.

Suicide in the East and in ancient Europe

The social perception of suicide differed in the West and in China. While in the West, the Christian religion, which shaped culture and way of life, unequivocally condemned suicide (from the 6th century onward), comparing it to murder, Chinese thought subordinated individual lives to the interests of leaders—both religious and political—who either presented themselves as representatives of the gods (like the early kings of the Shang dynasty) or were directly deified (like the emperors). Sacrifice was considered a natural consequence of the respect due to these leaders. This ideology viewed suicide as the correct response to certain dilemmas related to loyalty to the sovereign or to one’s husband, or as a response to certain offenses.

But suicide wasn’t always stigmatized in the West. In pre-Platonic Greece, each suicide was judged according to the circumstances and motivations of the individual. By Plato’s time, suicide was only accepted in extreme situations, but only the first of the four main philosophical schools of the period—the Pythagoreans, the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans—considered suicide negative. The others saw it as perfectly acceptable (Keck 1999). The ancient heroic ethos remained alive among the people, and during war, Spartans and other peoples willingly offered their lives for victory or in the face of defeat. Hemlock was readily available, and in some cities, such as Kos, it was recommended that those over 60 drink it to end their lives (Young 1994). Similar policies were followed in other Greek cities (the Greek world presents great differences from one city to another), and it is known that in Thebes and Marseille anyone could commit suicide after presenting their case to the authorities.

In Rome, Greek influence blended with a distinct warrior ethos that despised death, and hemlock, readily available to anyone who sought it, was used by many citizens to end their lives. This method was so simple (like opium in China centuries later) that even proponents of the right to commit suicide reconsidered their position (Young 1994).

Radical opposition did not emerge until the popularization of Christianity, although in its early years, when Christians were persecuted, they embraced death without resistance, “imitating the example of Christ and trusting in the reward of eternal life. Emperor Marcus Aurelius laments in his Meditations the Christian willingness to die out of pure ‘emulation’” (Ferrández 2021: 189). In reality, many Christian martyrs technically committed suicide, since they did not avoid their deaths when they had the opportunity to do so. They believed that martyrdom was the quickest path to heaven, and their actions were approved as a model of conduct, and their protagonists were sanctified (Hillman 1976: 33). With their dominance of social discourse already well established, the line between martyrdom and suicide remained very thin. Augustine of Hippo warns in The City of God “suicide is forbidden, but martyrdom is permitted as long as the order comes from a divine mandate” (Ferrández 2021: 190).

From the 6th century onwards, any form of voluntary death was equated with murder, and suicide was condemned at the Councils of Braga (563), Auxerre (578), and Antisidore (590), with the Council of Toledo (693) threatening the suicide victim with excommunication (Young 1994: 695). But even in the 17th century, seduced by descriptions of heaven, Teresa of Ávila and her brother “even managed to run away to go to ‘Moorish lands’ to be ‘beheaded,’ but they didn’t get very far, because an uncle found them and brought them back home” (Ferrández 2021: 192).

In the heroic world of the primitive peoples of Europe, suicide was a test of courage. The bodyguards, called soldurii , comitatus , or by other names, declared their loyalty to a leader, swearing not to outlive him, for it was the greatest shame to do so and withdraw from the battlefield. For those leaders who maintained and armed them, and rewarded them with a share of the spoils, it was dishonorable to be outdone in bravery on the battlefield. In pre-Roman Spain, this heroic sentiment was especially deeply rooted, and Livy recounts that, when Cato disarmed all the inhabitants north of the Ebro River, the Iberians suffered so badly that “many took their own lives, convinced that without weapons life was worthless. The Celtiberians considered it an honor to fall on the battlefield, and the Cantabrians committed suicide when they were no longer fit for war” (Peralta Labrador 1989: 75). The suicidal end to the siege of Numantia is still studied in schools, whose inhabitants, faced with the impossibility of dying in combat against the Roman troops, «who had immobilized them in their city by means of an iron siege, decided to set fire to their houses and fight to the death among themselves in pairs of warriors, throwing into the fire the severed heads of the defeated comrades and committing suicide the last survivors, since they could not bear the idea of ​​dying of hunger and only conceived of dying violently in combat by means of the sword as dignified» (Peralta Labrador 1989: 79).

This is an example of the heroic ethos that led the Indo-Europeans to conquer Europe and parts of Asia, thanks to the almost reckless courage of their youth. Among the Celts and Thracians, suicide was common and treated with great nonchalance. Athenaeus quotes Seleucus: “Some of the Thracians, at their drinking parties, play the game of hanging; and they fix a rope in some high place, under which they place a stone that turns easily when someone stands on it; and then they cast lots, and the one who draws the lot, holding a sickle in his hand, stands on the stone, and puts his neck in the rope.” Then they remove the stone, and the man who is suspended, without a foothold, if he is not quick enough to cut the rope with his sickle, will meet his death, while the rest laugh.” Among the Celts, Athenaeus mentions individual combats for entertainment, in which they may even kill one another, as well as the custom of placing a pig’s hindquarter on the table, and the bravest man taking it; and if someone else claims it, then the two rise to fight, until one of them is killed. And Euphorion of Chalcidius, in his Historical Memoirs , writes: ‘Among the Romans it is common to offer five minæ to anyone who decides to accept it, to allow his head to be cut off with an axe, so that his heirs may receive the reward: and sometimes there have been fights to see who had the greater right to be beaten to death’ (Summers 1926).

Chinese society approved of certain suicides

In Chinese culture, certain forms of suicide were considered heroic, and those who committed them were often respected and remembered. This moral value gave suicide a very important role in their society, and an astonishing number of men and women took their own lives following traditional patterns of behavior, often being praised for their capacity for sacrifice, and their ideas reconsidered in light of their deaths (Lindell 1973: 237).

While altruistic suicides dot the pages of Chinese history, its citizens also took their own lives for more prosaic reasons: love, jealousy, illness, distressing situations, debt, or indignation after suffering humiliation. And to counter these acts, especially since the establishment of Buddhism and Taoism as central to the culture, we see a demonization of suicide similar to that in the West. And in the catechisms [iv] where moral behavior was propagated, suicides were threatened with hellish punishments as severe as those established by Christianity (Zhao 2020).

In China, it was believed that each person had an ethereal soul (hun) and an earthly soul (po) . After death, through funerary rites, these souls either went to live in the underworld, seen as a reflection of the real world, with a government as bureaucratic as that of the living, or, after purging their sins, were reincarnated into a new being. This meant that among the punishments, the most feared were not the most painful, but those that involved the destruction of the body, such as decapitation or ten thousand cuts, as these deprived the soul of a place to return to. It’s true that no one has clearly explained how one could return to these dead bodies, already turned to dust years after being buried, but the belief in their return was widespread. In fact, eunuchs preserved their emasculated parts in formaldehyde so that they could be buried with them and remain as whole men in their tombs.  

The presence of spirits among people was so deeply ingrained, as was their ability to interact with them, that many who committed suicide did so with the conviction that from the afterlife they could exact revenge on their enemies in this world, sometimes thanks to the power that a violent death would grant them. For in China, there was a belief in an afterlife, which, unlike in the West, was not thought to take place in a distant spiritual paradise, difficult to imagine and conceptualize, but rather in a world similar to that of the living. This belief was continually reinforced through communication with the dead, especially with those ancestors who protected their descendants, who were felt to descend and enjoy their offerings during the New Year festival and other occasions; but also with the hungry spirits (of those who died without descendants to sacrifice to them) to whom collective offerings were made.

In China there were never laws prohibiting suicide. During the later dynasties (Ming and Qing), inciting suicide was punishable: “All those who for any reason pressure others to commit suicide shall receive one hundred lashes. Officials and employees who pressure commoners to commit suicide [v] (outside the scope of their public duties) shall have the same penalty, and also pay ten taels for the expenses of burial. Those who pressure their own relatives to commit suicide shall be strangled [vi] ; if they pressure someone to commit suicide as a result of sexual assault or robbery, they shall be beheaded” (Hsieh – Spence 1981).

In reality, the moral perception of suicide has varied throughout history, and although many of its forms have remained popular, each defines distinct historical periods. In the most remote times (3,500 years ago), the most significant suicides were those of the shaman-king himself when he failed in his mission to bring well-being to the people, and those of the people who accompanied him to his death. Later, the king and his shamans ceased to sacrifice themselves, giving way in historical records to defeated generals, failed ministers, and the first instances of its use as a demonstration of loyalty or proof of moral integrity. During the Han dynasty (around two thousand years ago), the most common suicides were those permitted by the emperor as a favor to ministers and princes who had fallen from grace. Buddhist monks and Taoist practitioners took over in the early centuries of our era, and from the 13th century (Yuan dynasty) to the 18th century, some types of suicide, such as that of widows, were encouraged by the state and openly praised.

In the West, money seems to be more important, and no one considers it morally reprehensible for a bodyguard to sacrifice their life for the person they are meant to protect, for a father to give his life for his child, or for a soldier or police officer to offer their life for the success of a mission or the safety of their comrades. Some of these acts are even presented as heroic, like those of soldiers who have to fight on the front lines, where the expected casualty rate makes fighting suicidal. But the soldier is convinced that they are fighting for their country, without being given much time to reflect on the meaning of those words.  

When giving one’s life for justice, revolution, country, ideals, parents, or children is considered acceptable and even heroic, it implies that there are reasons why one can offer one’s life. And in a world where more and more people choose to follow their own principles, anyone can find equally valid reasons to do so. Once the prohibition of suicide is no longer presented as absolute, the door is opened for each person contemplating suicide to find the moral justifications they deem sufficient.

Chinese suicide in Western sources

The Chinese view of suicide had already caught the attention of early Western travelers. Interestingly, in Juan González de Mendoza’s *History of the Great Kingdom of China* (1990), one of the most influential texts of the 16th and 17th centuries, the suicides mentioned are those of prisoners and convicts in jails—a phenomenon that has received little attention in subsequent Sinology. Among the writings of the Jesuits who lived in China in the 17th century, there are some mentions of suicide. Despite their attempts to present a positive image of China, they could not help but note the casualness with which its inhabitants took their own lives (Botton Beja 1984). And although they praised the protection of female chastity, especially that of widows, they could not condone suicide, which was incompatible with Christian doctrine (Amsler 2018: 44).

Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628) was struck by suicides motivated by revenge: “It is said that every year several thousand men and women put a rope around their throats and strangle themselves in the fields, or in front of their adversaries’ gates, or throw themselves into rivers, or take their own lives by swallowing poison; and sometimes for very insignificant reasons. As the magistrates severely punish those accused by the relatives of the deceased of having been the cause of their despair, they believe they cannot take revenge in any other way” (2005: 79). And in the chronicles [vii] of nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries, the frequency of suicides is highlighted, and they describe with astonishment those of widows. Reverend Gray [viii] (1878: 329) considers that “The Chinese are perhaps more prone to suicide than the inhabitants of any other country in the world.”

The Chinese committed suicide mainly by taking opium, hanging, or drowning, generally driven to it by immorality or destitution, or dominated by jealousy, anger, or disappointment. Suicide by throat-cutting was rare, so as not to destroy the integrity of the body. Since they believed that in the afterlife they would wear the clothes they had on at the time of their death, they dressed in their finest clothes to end their lives (Gray 1878: 329-30). Some young wives took their own lives by swallowing match heads, even though they knew that death by phosphorus poisoning was agonizing. Ingestion of gold leaf or magnesium chloride, ingestion of lead, cutting the throat, and stabbing the abdomen were popular, although these were gradually replaced by opium because of its ease of acquisition and the peaceful death it brought (Bird 1899: 51).

Isabella Bird (1899: 52) believed that most suicides were men, who committed suicide as revenge and to harm their enemies. In women, suicides were sometimes due to fits of rage, cruelty from mothers-in-law, marital quarrels, debt, gambling losses, a desire to annoy their husbands, their husbands’ extravagant opium use, accusations of theft, being defrauded, childlessness, fear of divorce or being sold by their husbands, poverty, and so on.

Chinese culture presented so many reasons for ending one’s life that suicide can be considered one of its defining characteristics. It was associated with defeated generals and princes during dynastic changes, with wars, corrupt emperors, and unfavorable family situations. It was described as an act of loyalty to the emperor, as a moral protest, and as a strategy for coping with exploitative and oppressive relationships. This assertion is particularly apt for the situation in the 19th century, when the imperial system was faltering. A foreign observer called China at that time the «Land of Suicides,» estimating that there might have been 500,000 cases a year (Ball 1906: 667).

China’s recent history shows how the study of suicide can help uncover societal contradictions. Just 20 years ago, China had a suicide rate of 23 per 100,000 inhabitants (Phillips et al. 2002a), while in the United States it was 11 per 100,000. Suicide was the fifth leading cause of death in China, while in the US it was the tenth (Zhang and Liu 2011). The difference in suicide rates between China and Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore contradicted the argument that Chinese culture inherently produces high suicide rates, pointing instead (1999: 37) to situations caused by the reforms initiated in 1978, such as economic losses due to starting businesses or pathological gambling; increased marital infidelity and divorce; alcohol and drug abuse; and the rising cost of healthcare. The weakening of family and social ties; migration to urban areas in search of work; and the growing economic gap between rich and poor, which caused greater levels of dissatisfaction with one’s own situation.

At the end of the 20th century, suicides among women were especially frequent in rural areas. Some young peasant women, with little education and no independent sources of income, saw it as the only way out of distressing situations caused by family conflicts. Many ingested pesticides, easily obtained due to their use in agriculture, and their mortality rate was higher due to the inadequate training of rural doctors (Joseph 2019: 238).

As if reality were aligning with scientific projections, the suicide rate in China has fallen dramatically in the first decades of the 21st century, reaching 9.17 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021, compared to 15.3 in the United States and 7.73 in Spain (World 2023). This decline has coincided with a greater number of people leaving rural areas in search of better jobs, thus freeing many women from the restrictive social norms of the countryside. In the words of The Economist : “Moving to cities for work… has been a lifeline for many young rural women.” Globalization has saved the lives of thousands of them (Follett 2017).

We can end this section by quoting Mao Zedong: “When something happens in society, we must not underestimate its importance. The background of any event contains multiple causes of its occurrence” (Wu 2010: 194).

This work

This work is divided into two parts. In the first, the culture of suicide in China, we will begin by presenting the types of suicide practiced during the Shang dynasty, which flourished more than 3,000 years ago, as some of these practices continued until recent times. We will then situate suicide within the various religious systems of China, beginning with folk religion, where we will discover the importance of sacrifices by shamans and blacksmiths, the belief that suicide produces a powerful spirit, and how young suicide victims came to be venerated as deities.

Suicide in the Buddhist world has a tradition spanning over 2,000 years, with some extreme examples that demonstrate the religion’s disregard for life and the capacity of its most fervent followers to donate their own bodies. These include monks who cremated themselves as a sign of devotion, devotees who threw themselves off cliffs to be received by the Buddha in death, and those who jumped from the top of trees after uttering the name of Amitabha Buddha, hoping to be reborn in the Western Paradise. We will later examine suicide in the Taoist world. Since its philosophers treated death as a vital process that complements life, some original forms of suicide were practiced. Sometimes disguised as a mystery that they believed would grant immortality, their mortal bodies were abandoned after ingesting poisonous drugs or engaging in ecstasy and extreme fasting.

The study of suicide within the imperial religion, with its Confucian ideology, will allow us to see how ideas about suicide shaped Chinese society. These concepts of loyalty sometimes deprived society of its best men through the sacrifices of valuable ministers, generals defeated in battle, loyal advisors who fell from grace, entire cities that immolated themselves during dynastic changes, as did thousands of ministers and officials, and women facing changes in their family circumstances. Also belonging to the Confucian world are suicides caused by the complex family relationships of imperial China, in which women sometimes suffered oppression from their husband’s family, as well as those caused by love, jealousy, rape, or the purchase of wives. 

These suicides, and others related to Confucian culture, reveal that suicide had become a serious social ill, destroying human values ​​from within. By framing the culture of suicide within the turbulent historical context of the 19th century, the data presented in the book naturally leads us to the conclusion that the Chinese conception of suicide was one of the factors that contributed to the fall of the imperial regime. Three types of suicide converged to destroy society: the cult of chaste widows, which recreated an ideal society, concealing the reality of the country; suicides motivated by revenge and their use to extort money from wealthy families, which subverted the morality of individuals (capable of killing their own family members for profit) and of the administration (which turned a blind eye if it also benefited); and finally, suicide to avoid defeat, a norm among generals and ministers throughout 2,000 years of Chinese history. This last type had two effects. On the one hand, it meant the loss of the most loyal generals and ministers; on the other, for those who had already ceased to believe in the legitimacy of the imperial regime, the easiest way to refuse to give their lives for the emperor was to deny defeat and portray it as a victory. Thus, during the continuous wars that plunged China into chaos during the 19th century, the central government rarely knew the true situation on the battlefronts.

[i] Books dedicated entirely to this subject are essential: Theiss, Janet M. Disgraceful Matters: The Politics of Chastity in Eighteenth-Century China . University of California Press. 2004. Benn, James A. Burning for Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism . University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu. 2007; and Wu Fei, Suicide and Justice: A Chinese Perspective . Routledge, 2010. The latter addresses contemporary suicides in rural China. The special issue of Nan-nü on this topic, coordinated by Paul Ropp in 2001,also marked a milestone in modern research

[ii] Although he himself quotes E. Vicente, who said: «Suicide is a greater scourge in Japan than in China, people commit suicide at any age, for any reason and by any means.»

[iii] Early 21st-century Western society places the value of individual life above all else, but only if that individual belongs to society, or to the groups that dominate it, and only if that death is clearly linked to a cause. This is why the focus is on processes that keep a person’s life in suspense, while hundreds or thousands of deaths far from borders are ignored (or even deliberately caused). The anonymous deaths that scientists predict will occur in the future as a consequence of current policies—from global warming and urban pollution to the use of agrochemicals and heavy metals in food—are also disregarded due to their anonymity. Even if the number of deaths is precisely quantified, it is impossible to identify, by name, who these victims will be.   

[iv] Like the Yu li of the Buddhists, which we will mention later.

[v] Concern about police abuse seems to have a long history, as the legal texts of the Qin dynasty (221 – 207 BCE), unearthed in Shuihudi, already emphasize the importance of distinguishing suicides from covert homicides, as well as warnings to police officers that in the exercise of overly severe interrogations they may lead suspects to suicide (Barbieri-Low and Yates 2015).

[vi] It refers mainly to widows, sometimes encouraged by the family of the deceased husband to end their lives in order to recover the family property that rightfully belonged to them.

[vii] We will cite more nineteenth-century authors in the following chapters, when we discuss suicides of chaste widows and suicides primarily for revenge.

[viii] He dedicates chapter XIII of his work  China: a history of the laws , manners and customs of the people entirely to suicide.

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