Society And Legal System In Nothern Wei After Emperor Hsiao-wen’s Reform

What society needs promote the development of legal system as well as the development of legal system reflects the needs of society. These interactions exist in the social change which happens all the time. When the social change takes place in a fierce way as reform or revolution, its influences spread rapidly to politic, economic, culture, social organizations and social life. Legal system always adjust itself to the social change. Sometimes it happens before the change, leading people’s behavior, coordinating the request of reform. Sometimes it happens after the change and controls the results of change.The reform of Emperor Hsiao-wen of Northern Wei was regulated by ordinances of emperor and other laws. By establishing new system and announcing new policies, Emperor Hsiao-wen gave his country many obvious changes on the fracture of society, relationship of people, and the primary social ideology. The process of social change also the process of implementation of laws.My dissertation based on probing these questions: What are the legal system’s functions in the reform? How did the legal system adjust itself to the social change? Did it achieve tangible results or not? If there still reserved some social relationships which refused to change by law, what made it happen? What elements influence the working of law and how did they be adjusted?It includes three parts, introduction , major discussions and conclusions.Introduction contains the retrospection of previous researching, researching clues and methods, writing fracture, introduction of conceptions using in this dissertation and creative results and meanings of this dissertation.Major discussions carries out conclusions from four points of view: first, political culture and legal system; second, social ideology and legal system; third, social fracture and legal system; and last, historical role of Emperor Hsiao-wen’s legal reform.There are three aspects in political culture and legal system: (1)In which ways the legal system protected the men-fa and in which way it let men-fa fall into decay without legal regulation and protection.(2)Legal reform in administration system.(3)Joining cliques as a crime in the ruling class.Social ideology and legal system contains the analysis about how the li connected with criminal law and judicial acts.In social fracture and legal system; I discuss how the local organization, local force, economic and education effect people’s reception of law and what (or who) maintain the public order or break it.I also inquire into the introspections of Northern Wei’s successes and failures by Northern Qi and Northern Chou in historical role of Emperor Hsiao-wen’s legal reform..At last, there is a chapter named legal system and sense of legal in social change, which includes some summarizes and complements of former discussions.