Economic Analysis On The Divorce Question

Marriage is a prerequisite for the composition of home, and home constitutes the basic unit of society, marriage and family problems not only associate with people's daily lives, but also play an important role on the harmony and stability for the whole society. Economic relation on marriage is an important form of socio-economic relations, which is not only unified in the various socio-economic relations, but also into many aspects of socio-economic relations. Economic relation on marriage involves in many levels and ranges, not only describes the importance in reality of society, but also reflects the need for the research. American economist Becker, American law economists Posner and other scholars have made outstanding contributions to study the economic relations in marriage, and their work-related research has also become the first choices in this field. From the 1960s, the marriage laws of Western States have undergone enormous changes, and mainly manifested in the changes on the divorce system, most countries changed from the "fault" divorce time to "no-fault" divorce time. The book "the law and economics of marriage and divorce" edited by Dennis and Lucerne made representative analysis on different changes of marriage law in different states, in the book professors analyse divorce questions with economic methods, and consider that a marriage law is scientific or not relates to the level of confidence which marriage depends on, that is to say, if the marriage law is unreasonable, unscientific, that would lead to no sense of trust between husband and wife, and in this case, there is the possibility of the breakdown of the marriage relationship. Professors proposed amendments about the divorce problems of marriage law with the analysis of law and economics, and it is useful of the development of marriage law, improvement of the quality of people's lives, the stability of social.The research of western scholars in the field of marriage and family made us reflect the marriage law in China. The marriage laws in our country passed decades of development, three major legislative changes, have formed the basic theoretical framework, also made a number of research results. However, we must recognize that there are shortcomings and deficiencies in the existing marriage law, the marriage law which need further reform and improve are our current major issues that need to be resolved. And the terms of divorce is have much controversy, such as judicial interpretation of the content conflict with the divorce standards of existing marriage law, the legal provisions is not detailed enough, there are still gaps in the law lead to individual cases in the real can not be found judgment basis and so on, these are the issues requiring urgent solution.This paper is premised on the "economic man" hypothesis, with the use of the basic theory of economics, analyses the evolution on divorce problems of the marriage law in the west countries (for example the United States), combined with the Chinese marriage law in terms of the evolution process of divorce, and pointed out the inadequacy of existing laws, and finally to introduce legislative proposals.This paper is divided into four parts:The first chapter introduces the question of marriage in general economic theory research. This chapter describes four types of substance theory in current marital relationship academia, and explained the reasons that this article agree on the theory of marriage contract. At the same time, summarizes a lot of influential economic theories of marriage research until now, such as the theory of Becker and Posner, and they provide the necessary theoretical basis for the analysis of the back.The second part: the western countries of the economic analysis of the divorce problem - to the United States as an example. In this chapter, the terms of the marriage law in the evolution of divorce in the United States are introduced, and it is a process of the United States from the "fault" divorce time to "no-fault" divorce time. Next, analyses the United States divorce issues from an economic point of view, including the causes of the higher divorce rate in the United States, as well as from the conditions for divorce, property division, compensation of damage, child support and other aspects of economic analysis.The third part: the economics analysis of Chinese divorce problem. This chapter is the focus of this article and it is divided into two sections. First section from the conditions for divorce, matrimonial property system, property division, compensation of damages, child support introduce the evolution of divorce problem through the three terms of the marriage law after founding our country. The second section: firstly analyzes the reasons for Chinese divorce with the economics theory of diminishing marginal utility and asymmetric information theory, then analyses the consequences of divorce by the concept of sunk cost, opportunity cost and returns to scale.In the forth part, on the basis of the third part, analyses the current problems of the marriage law about divorce aspects and put legislative proposals. At present, Chinese marriage law in terms of divorce, there are some inadequacies, this paper raised some questions about the conditions for divorce, matrimonial property system, property division, compensation of damages, and separately make specific legislative proposals to these issues, in addition to an increase of legislative proposals on the time limit for divorce. I hope these suggestions can lead to the attention of the relevant department in order to play a practical significance when the marriage law of our country is amended.It is obvious that the revision of the marriage law are unlikely to be completed overnight, it is a constantly tends to progress, to perfect the process, it will with time have been given more new content. Therefore, it requires that the scholars go on researching according to the of the change of time, and constantly propose the legislative proposals to adapt to the time to meet the needs of people's lives, improve the quality of people's lives and maintain the stability of marriage in order to advance social progress.