Invalid Marriage System

The institution of invalid marriage has been the blank space of our marriage legislation all along since Marriage Law was promulgated in 1950. Although the invalid marriage has been involved in some administration laws and judicial interpretations, it is the twenty-first Conference of the Ninth National People's Congress Standing Committee held in April, 2001 clarified the invalid marriage legislation. The forming of the institution of invalid marriage is a milestone in the history of our marriage and family legislation. It has epoch-making significance. Based on today's poor social public order and moral degeneracy, the institution of invalid marriage has deeply positive influence on perfecting marriage behavior, correcting invalid marriage and maintaining social stability, furthermore, can guarantee the sanctity and authority of the law and urge us to execute the law strictly.Invalid marriage can be defined as an illegal form of marriage which breaks the marriage terms stipulated by the law. The crux of invalid marriage is its lack of legal marriage factors. Invalid legislation mainly has two forms: single track system and double track system. Single track system stipulates either absolute invalid marriage or rescindable marriage. But double track system stipulates them both. China follows double track system which is widely used all over the world. According to its content, our invalid marriage has many imperfections which require us to make further improvement in our legislation.Based on different definition of invalid marriage in marriage and family law, different countries have different values upon invalid marriage legislation. According to the same illegal marriage behavior, some countries regard it as invalid marriage, but others take it as rescindable one. Quite differently, some countries may think it not illegal. These varying ideas reflect their different law culture and tradition. Meanwhile, the majority of countries stipulate the limits to the application for invalidation or rescission. The limits include time limits, illegal factors' disappearance limits and confirming parties limits. The application rights for invalid marriage are also the same in different countries. Some countries stipulate only the two invalid marriage parties or their close relatives have the rights to apply for the invalidation or rescission of the invalid marriage. But some countries stipulate that...