The research this thesis project entailed has suggested several directions for further investigation. The first two represent portions of the project as originally conceived that were truncated due to time constraints. Chapter Three locates the emergence of the public visibility of zhengxinshe as private detectives in the early 1970s, the point at which the gap became perceptible, and taking account of this
lengthened timeframe, conducts a cursory comparison of the industry’s public visibility then and closer to the present day. It is suggested that the element of illegality first accrued to the industry then, has continued to the present, and that zhengxinshe have attempted to counter it, for example, by espousing a “gentle” effeminate persona. A more in-depth investigation would explain just how the gap formed, and why it has maintained to the present. A preliminary review of government documents obtained through use of the Freedom of Government Information Law suggests that various local and central government agencies took a much more active role in suppressing detective-like services than is apparent from sanitized authoritarian era news reports. Due to time constraints, the author was unable to integrate these sources into Chapter Three, but many of these documents suggest the varied and nuanced means through which the
government attempted to maintain the state’s presumed monopoly on investigation and collection of evidence. It is possible that further research would reveal the extent to which this concerted, yet nearly invisible efforts to suppress the detective-like activities of zhengxinshe contributed to negative public impressions of the industry. Furthermore, a more detailed treatment of the development of zhengxinshe’s public visibility over the last four decades would do much to shed light on how and when the industry began to exhibit a feminized image, and furthermore, what accounts for the expansion of and increased visibility of the industry.
The insights gleaned from the investigation of court documents presented in Chapter Four are promising, but the case study method adopted has its limitations and other methods drawing from the same pool of data promise to yield many other undoubtedly exciting discoveries. Examples of disputing and judicial behavior evidenced in the case studies raise further provocative questions. For instance, how often are private contracts used by husbands and wives to modify the parameters of their marriages, how are these perceived and treated by the judiciary, and what role do they play in intimate disputes involving extramarital intimacy? Another salient question relates to the representation of zhuajian in court documents. Reviewing the materials on which Case Study II is based, the author got the sense that the zhuanjian, or at least the recounting of it, was similar enough to media accounts to seem scripted. A
comparison of a larger number of zhuajian narratives in court documents may yield a pattern as well as insight into the way these narratives are designed to sway judges.
Previous research has acknowledged a large degree of variance among judges’
standards for ascertaining the fact of criminal adultery. There is a great need for rigorous empirical research that uncovers and even quantitatively analyzes the role of
different forms of evidence therein, as there is indeed for qualitative research that analyzes judges’ rationales related to evidence and the establishment of fact.
Finally, any of a number of the tentative conclusions of this thesis could be greatly extended and strengthened by fieldwork. Exclusive reliance on documentary sources can only take one so far in understanding a complex socio-legal phenomenon.
An investigation of the legal consciousness of parties to intimate disputes is needed in general, and may be particularly fruitful for disputes in which zhengxinshe play a part.
Questions abound: What in the minds of husbands, wives, and “third parties” qualifies as just in such disputes? What role do disputants think the state (police, courts, etc.) should play? And, what are men and women thinking when they knowingly follow zhengxinshe to the edge of the law and beyond?
Bibliography
Literatures in Chinese
1. 甘添貴（2003），妨害婚姻與口交通姦，台灣本土法學雜誌，42期，頁 147－151。
2. 李立如（2002）法不入家門？家事法演變的社會學分析，中原財經法學，
10期，頁41－83。
3. 李珮慈（2004），徵信業之比較研究，中央警察大學行政警察研究所碩士 論文。
4. 林山田（2005），刑法各罪論（下冊），增訂五版，台北：林山田發行 , 台大法律學院圖書部經銷。
5. 官曉薇 （2009），通姦除罪化運動之走向──通姦罪判決之研究，座談會
報告大綱。
6. 徐昌錦（2006），通姦除罪化 : 案例硏究與實證分析，初版，台北：五南
7. 徐昌錦（2006），也談通姦除罪化從審判實務之角度出發，司法週刊，
1274期，頁2-3 。
8. 余振華（2003），對性犯罪之刑罰規定的再檢討，月旦法學雜誌，96期，
頁88-102。
9. 陳宜倩（2008），改寫異性戀霸權腳本──通姦罪與罰之女性主義法學透
視，世新法學，2.1期，頁1-42。
10. 陳昭如（1999），權利、法律改革與本土婦運—以臺灣離婚權的發展為例，
政大法學評論第，62期，頁25-74。
11. 陳昭如（2010），婚姻作為法律上的異性戀父權與特權，女學學誌，27期
，頁113-199。
12. 陳棋炎、黃宗樂、郭振恭（2009），民法親屬新論，8版，臺北 : 三民。
13. 陳瑞霖（2009），我國徵信業管理之研究，中央警察大學警察政策研究所 碩士論文。