| Women problems have been not only one of the hot social problems for centuries but also one serious social problem which almost any political party and its representatives demanding reformation need to care about and cope with. Women's position in law is an important criterion to judge the civilization degree of a society. In the old feudalist society which lasted for thousands of years, women's position in law, influenced by the idea of "men are superior and women are inferior", was extremely low.The Opium War shocked the feudalist Qing Dynasty, and the western thoughts such as "God gave humankind rights" and "Men and women are equal" were spread into China by the western priests and Chinese scholars. The politics, economy and culture at that time changed a lot, and in the old China, there appeared a mixed social phenomenon of the old and the new, the east and the west, the traditional and the modem. Women problems also became a hard nut to crack in the turning age.Influenced by the western feminist thoughts, some wise scholars such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Sunyixian fought against the feudalist rules and conventions bravely and believed that the Chinese women's position in law should be raised for the first time. At the same time, with the increasing communications with the-west, the Chinese women, having been oppressed for thousands of years began to wake up. In order to gain their rights to live, to protect themselves, t o get heritages, to be educated, to work as equally as men and to be involved in politics, Chinese women, with the help of the wise and democratic personages, made a sustained struggle. These opinions and actions stimulated the government to take women problems into their consideration in making laws.The government of the end of Qing Dynasty, the Nanking provisional government ,and the Beiyang government, forced by the social situation and the demanding of the historical development, issued a lot of laws and decrees about women problems. From the analysis of the items of the laws of this period, we can see that the constitutions have absorbed some examples of the capitalist countries, which obviously reflects the whole Chinese capitalist democratic revolution. But due to the great influence by the half-colonialist and half-feudalist society, these legislation still stressed on the safeguard of the feudalist decrees and rules. On the definition of the two sexes in law, these laws also show the characteristics of the society in the turning age and arduously scratched a unique historical track in the modern revolution on women problems.Through the laws and rules made during the end of Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the women's position in law in China improveda lot. It showed: l.The personal rights of women improved greatly; 2. The unequal status of women in the marriage was corrected to some extent; 3. The acquisition of women's rights in education and participation of political affairs raised women's abilities to improve themselves and taking part in social affairs; 4.More and more women could go out of their families after obtaining employment. But viewed from the legislation of women problems itself and social life, the women's position in law was not high enough. Judged by the legislation itself, women had no political rights in the constitution. Women were still looked down upon in the criminal law and the civil law safeguarded the marriage relations o feudal ethical as well. Viewed from the realistic life of women, women got less education than that of men. There was still restrictions in women's occupation. In the family, the feudal idea of regarding men as superior to women were still serious. Profession of prostitutes and the general mood of receiving concubines were in vogue at that time. In view of these, the women's position in law was far inferior to the degree which law should bestow on .The reasons could be summarized as follows: existence of deep-rooted feudal autocracy, deep effects of feudal traditional culture, defects of l...
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