The legal dispute in question occurred in 1943 in a small village in Eastern Gansu Province. The cause of the dispute can be traced back to 1928, when a farmer in Huachi County, Feng Yangui, betrothed his four-sui-old daughter, Peng'er, to Zhang Bo, the five-sui-old son of Zhang Jincai, another farmer in a neighboring village. The Zhang family then paid ten silver yuan as a betrothal gift. In 1942, when Peng'er reached the legally marriageable age of eighteen years old, Zhang Jincai asked for a formal wedding to marry the young couple. However, Feng Yangui ignored this request and showed no intent to fulfill the engagement agreement. Zhang Jincai then brought Feng to the Huachi County government, suing him for attempting to annul a marriage contract. The county government tried to mediate the dispute but failed because, according to the record, Peng'er herself “strongly objected to the engagement” (jianjue bu yuanyi 坚决不愿意). The county government workers had no choice but to invalidate the engagement under the principle of freedom of marriage (see Figure 1.1).

After abolishing this engagement, Feng Yangui attempted to betroth his daughter to a son of another Zhang family for 2,400 Republican yuan (fabi 法币) plus 48 silver yuan as a betrothal gift. However, this move was detected by Zhang Jincai, who had been closely monitoring his former daughter-in-law-to-be even though the government had already annulled the engagement. Zhang Jincai reported Feng to the government for “selling a marriage” (mai mai hunyin 买卖婚姻), a violation of the 1939 SGN marriage regulation; it was therefore invalidated by the Huachi County government. In 1943, Peng'er's father received another offer from Zhu Shouchang (朱寿昌), who promised Feng 8,000 yuan fabi plus four bolts of machine-made fabric and 20 silver yuan in exchange for his daughter. On March 10, 1943, Zhu Shouchang came to Feng's home for the engagement ceremony. Zhu delivered 7,000 yuan fabi, four bolts of thick blue machine-made fabric, probably valued at 1,120,000 yuan fabi, and about three pounds of cotton. The marriage contract was thus settled.

On the thirteenth day of the second month in the lunar calendar, Peng'er followed her mother to a local event in a neighboring village where she ran into her former fiancé, Zhang Bo, a handsome young man.