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The 1902 Lease also shows us a glimpse of how women were treated in the village then. It was a frequent occurrence that men died, leaving widows. Traditionally, there were three ways of dealing with this. In poorer households, the widow would live in a corner of the house, which would be taken over by her sons. Where this happened, the Block Crown Lease, of course, does not show it. However, in other cases, especially where the widow was elderly, with adult sons, she would be given the house she had lived in for life, while the sons took the other houses and the farm, guaranteeing the mother a certain fixed amount of food per month for her upkeep (in some villages, the sons would execute a legally binding deed to this effect). At least three examples of this practice can be detected in the Nga Tsin Wai Block Crown Lease. The widow Ng Chan Shi (“Madame Ng, of the Chan surname”) is recorded as owning merely 1 house within the walls, and 1 house in Kowloon Market. Li Chan Shi (“Madame Li, of the Chan surname”) owned a house outside the walls, and 0.37 acres of land - probably to provide her with vegetables, and possibly for a small market garden plot. Li Ip Shi (“Madame Li, of the Ip surname”) had a house outside the walls, two houses in Kowloon Market, and a vegetable plot of 0.06 acres, with a further 0.05 acres held jointly with Li Ping-sang.
The alternative method of dealing with widows, especially where there were infant children, was to allow the widow to occupy the land in trust for her sons' coming-of-age. Sometimes this was formalised, with the widow shown in the Block Crown Lease as Trustee, but very often the widow is shown as full owner, everyone understanding the arrangement. There is one clear case of this in Nga Tsin Wai. Li Ng Shi ("Madame Li, of the Ng surname") is recorded as the owner of three houses within the walls, and a very large house at Sha Po, together with 1.24 acres of arable land. While it was theoretically possible for a woman to own land (e.g. land she bought with her own money), it was very rare, and it can be confidently assumed that this land was land held by her as widow, in trust for her infant sons.
The 1902 Block Crown Lease, therefore, shows us a prosperous village, filled with people, surrounded by what, for the New Territories, were broad areas of arable land, with the essential components of a self-confident village of a fine Ancestral Hall and School, and with access to a literary club. The Lease shows us that the village families were mostly holding enough land for their subsistence, especially if