Taxation system reforms carried out in the Qing Dynasty Yongzheng Period, and abolition of the low-social class system promoted wandering among traders, servile workers, and nomad populations. In this paper, a study of about a hundred abduction and elopement cases from the Grand Secretariat memorial on criminal matters (Neige xingke tiben) is made to discuss the effects of this social change on women and families of the lower social strata. Analysis of household structures and description of male abductors' characteristics shows that population increases in the Qianlong period led to changes in family composition and the rise of a sizable wandering population. Through an analysis of family relationships in the cases of abducted children and women, this study also reveals how wandering populations forged close interpersonal relationships with locals through partnership in the workplace, common clanship, adoption, and forging of blood-brother ties. This study also reveals how the resulting interpersonal network served as a condition advantageouse to abduction and elopement. Furthermore, in probing into the motives behind women elopement from their families, we have discovered that in addition to reasons of personal feeling or passion, economic, marital and family violence factors affecting women of lower social strata also played a part. Lastly, by a study of litigation modes, it was observed that maintenance of peace and order, both locally and societally, depended not only on the local yamen institution's arresting officers and its defense organization's watch guards, but also on community vigilantes, clan power, night guards, hotel keepers, and boat operators. All these seem to suggest that economic progress in 18th-century China contributed to a relaxation in parents' grip on members of families in the lower social strata. However, the arms of social control, jointly maintained by public and private sectors, continued to retain the old order in the local communities of these periods.