The Heavenly Commandments, as state law.
Opium, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, footbinding, prostitution and the sale of women were all abolished, and the ten commandments were enforced with capital penalties. Women held military and administrative rank, which no Qing institution allowed — and men and women were also housed in separate camps and forbidden each other, while the leadership was exempt.
The Taiping social programme was radical in both directions and both directions were real. Footbinding was banned; women held military commands and sat civil service examinations, which no Qing institution permitted; opium, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, prostitution and the sale of women were abolished; land was to be redistributed by household size regardless of sex. And men and women were housed in separate camps, forbidden contact including between married couples, with sex a capital offence for a period — while the leadership maintained large harems. Both facts are in the same documents. A reader who takes only the first has a propaganda pamphlet and a reader who takes only the second has a hostile one.
The distribution of all land is to be based on the number of persons in each family, regardless of sex. A large family is entitled to more land, a small one to less.
The Land System of the Heavenly Kingdom, in Sources of Chinese Tradition, ed. de Bary and Lufrano, 2nd ed., vol. 2, pp. 224-226The land programme was never implemented at scale. It is the clearest statement of what the kingdom said it was for.
The same ground, other faiths
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