In The Early Days Of The Founding Of New China, Hunan Province Promoted The Implementation Of The Marriage Law Movement

Led by the Communist Party of China(CPC),the movement of publicizing and implementing the Marriage Law of People's Republic of China(PRC)in 1950s was designed to repeal the old feudal marriage system and establish a new socialist one so as to eradicate the feudal concept on marriage embedded in people's mind.The movement launched in Hunan Province was also a component of that.The publicity work on and implementation of the Marriage Law in Hunan is the core of the essay considering the fact that the situation in Hunan is very typical.Hunan is a province inhabited by ethnic groups since antiquity.People there were conservative,feudal and famous for its uncivilized custom.What's more,Hunan was mainly controlled by the National Government during the Republican Period.The CPC's political influence in Hunan was relatively weak due to its backward organization and shortage of Party members and cadres there.As a result,people in Hunan were less informed compared to the people benefitted from revolution and education in the liberalized areas.All of these have brought difficulties in the implementation of the Marriage Law in Hunan,which deserves further research.Second,the amount and quality of the research conducted on the movement launched in Hunan Province leaves much to be desired.The essay falls into six parts:The introduction part briefly introduces the origin and significance of this study,the status quo of academic research,the description of literature,research methods,innovation,key points and difficulties as well as research framework.The first chapter mainly introduces the marital status of Hunan Province before the founding of the PRC.The traditional marriage system and family structure were shocked by the western culture and the great change in Chinese society since 1840.The traditional feudal marriage system experienced several changes during the Revolution of 1911,the May 4th Movement and the Republican Period but the foundation of feudal marriage system remained stable.There is a feudal marriage system,a bourgeois reformist marriage system and a new democratic marriage system in Hunan Province before the founding of the PRC,among which the feudal system of marriage played the dominative role.As for the marriage ritual,the traditional marriage ritual and the new one coexisted.The barbarian customs of arranged marriage,marriage bought by money,child bride,and polygamy and Ruzhui were still rampant.The second chapter illustrates the enacting background,process and the main contents of PRC's Marriage Law,which conforms to the historical trend and reality needs.This chapter introduces the backdrop of the Marriage Law by taking the Marxist and Mao Zedong Thought as the theoretical basis,contemplating on the practice and experience of marital legislation during the Democratic Revolution period,the practice and experience of marital legislation in Soviet Union and other socialist countries,the political security and the reality of the people's democratic regime and the comparison of the marital and family issues before and after the founding of new China.The main contents of the marriage law are analyzed from four aspects:the principle,the marriage system,the family relation system and the divorce system,based on which a comparative study was conducted between the old and new marriage system.The third chapter retrospects in detail the process of the movement of the promoting the Marriage Law in Hunan province.The promulgation and implementation of the Marriage Law of the PRC and the launch of the movement had ushered in the new era where the historical process of the establishment of the new Chinese marriage and family system started,clarifying the direction and objectives for the reform of the Chinese marriage system and family relations.Hunan Province carried out the marriage law mass movement in a wide-ranging and in-depth way focusing on publicizing and implementing the marriage law under the guidance of the central committee and Central South Bureau of the Communist Party of China.The movement can be divided into four stages:the initial stage of publicity and implementation,the stage focusing on the inspection on marriage law's implementation,the stage of designating a certain month for strengthening people's understanding of the marriage law and the stage where publicity work was done in a regular basis.Detailed information in each stage including people's reactions,achievements,and problems are also discussed in this chapter.The fourth chapter makes an explicit discussion on the changes on marriage and family system in Hunan province which derives in the publicizing and implementing the marriage law,through which people's marriage and family relations has shown encouraging progress.People are equipped with new thinking on marriage and marital customs are unshackled from the brutal tradition,forming a new climate on marriage and family system.The new marital relations begin to be established.Marriage now is based on the love the two shared for each other rather than the assets they hold.People have gained the right to choose their spouse on their own instead of being arranged by others.The idea that women should not seek divorce or remarriage after their husband died has been abandoned.Women now are treated equally with men.Women getting divorced and widow getting remarried are accepted by the people.Marriage procedures are streamlined from the old complicated one.A democratic and harmonious family relation has been cultivated which can be noticed in the relationship between husband and wife,relationship between the wife and her mother-in-law,and the improvement of women's family status.The fifth chapter reviews in a brief way the historical significance and limitation of the movement of publicizing and implementing the Marriage Law in Hunan province.After the movement,the old marriage system has been replaced by a new one in Hunan province with women's social status improved,and their productivity liberated,contributing to Hunan's social and economic development.People's political identity has also been strengthened,safeguarding county's control of rural areas.The historical limitations of the movement are mainly manifested in two aspects:the movement was imbalanced and hit-or-miss in nature.The death caused by marriage also requires attention.Reasons for these have been analyzed.The conflict of the movement between the govermment's fundamental work,namely economic development,and inadequate attention paid by government at all levels are the main reason for the imbalance and disorder of the movement.The conflict between the old and new marriage system and the marital concept was vehement.The cadres in grassroots level interfered with people's freedom of marriage.Judiciary and the judicial cadres were ignorant and inefficient in protecting women's right.The performance delivered by women organizations were much from desirable.All of these resulted in the death of women.Despite the historical limitations of the marriage movement in the early days of the People's Republic of China,there left much for us to learn from.