On The Couple " Loyalty Agreements "

Marriage is a significant issue for everyone, which not only related to personal happiness and social stability, but also deeply influences the development of civilized society. The increasing cases related to"loyalty agreement"have caught wide concern. As a new thing, how to deal with"loyalty agreement"is becoming a big challenge for the courts in China: lack of legal stipulations, the following comical phenomenon occurred many times: the same cases end with different judgments. Scholars` opinions vary on the nature and the effectiveness of"loyalty agreements".Thus, it's necessary to make an overall and systematic analysis on"loyalty agreement". Starting with two typical cases, the writer discussed the conjugal faithful obligation, and analyzed the concept, nature and classification of"loyalty agreement", trying to pierce its mysterious veil gradually. This paper is structured as follows:Section one introduces the basic information of"loyalty agreement", including its concept, nature, features and classification."Loyalty agreement"is an agreement made by the couple, according to the principle of autonomy will, on the conjugal faithful rights and obligations as well as the liability for breach of the agreement. This agreement is a kind of status contract, which is quite different with marriage settlement on the body, the objective and the content of contract. According to the content of"loyalty agreement", the writer classified it into three groups: individual agreement, property agreement as well as individual and property agreement.Section two analyzes the validity of"loyalty agreement". There are two representative concepts in theoretical and practical fields: the theory of valid and that of invalid. The writer disapproved the opinion that all the"loyalty agreements"were valid or invalid. It was better if we judge the validity of the agreement, according to the valid requirements and the real content of the contract.Section three discusses the issue of how to deal with this agreement by law. The Classification of the areas regulated by moral and law is necessary. Law could only regulate people` actions instead of people` affection. Thus, those"loyalty agreement"on people` affection should not be protected by law. It would greatly help to carry forward the ethos of conjugal family, to sustain civilized and harmonious marital relationship and to develop the building of harmonious society if we protecting those agreements meeting the valid requirements by law.