| Minority Customary law which is one of the main elements of Chinese Legal System is major historical heritage for human to comply with nature, to understand the world and to carry out self-management. It is significant for China to build its socialist legal system and set up national statutory law. To some extent, customary law plays a role which statutory law can not replace. Even today, in some minority areas, ethnic customary law continues to get good compliance and enforcement, and follow the development path it should continue to move forward. Then, how does minority customary law works in the modernization process and what effect it will get?To answer this question, some scholars have analyzed minority customary law from anthropology, law or ethnology point of view, however, most studies take the customary law as a whole from a macro point of view, covering vastly and rarely involving specific ethnic groups. To compensate this deficiency, this paper takes Pingguo County in Guangxi Zhuang Nationality Autonomous Region for an example to study customary law of succession of Zhuang Nationality in which the author will use empirical approach combined with field surveys in order to conduct a more in-depth research on Zhuang customary law of succession.Zhuang has the larger population than any other minority in China, mostly living in Guangxi. Census in November of 2005 show that the population of Zhuang living in Guangxi is15.18 million, accounting for 84.57% of all the minority populations in Guangxi. Zhuang population in Guangxi mainly lives in the area of Baise, Hechi and Chongzuo. Native Zhuang here has a long history and splendid culture. The Paleolithic "Baise hand-ax" unearthed in Baise in the ninetieth of last century shows that as early as 80 years ago, the ancestors of Zhuang began to thrive on the ground. The Pingguo County which belongs to Baise City in the administrative division, located in the western part of Guangxi Youjiang Valley, is a more typical of Zhuang ethnic neighborhoods.The research sites is Pingguo County, which is my hometown and located in the central and western south of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, east of Baise City, middle of Youjiang, with Mashan County at east, Wuming County at southeast, Dahua Yao Autonomous County at northeast,a Tian Dong County at west and the, Tiandeng Country at southwest, adjacent to Longan County at south and, adjacent Bama Yao Autonomous County to the north. The whole county which is a typical Zhuang ethnic neighborhoods governs 8 towns,4 lower towns and 181 administrative villages (communities), with a total area of 2485 square kilometers and a total population of 477,000 people, mainly inhabited by the nationalities of Zhuang, Han, Yao, Miao and others, of which the number of Zhuang is 408,000 people, accounting for 85.5%.The article consists of introduction and three chapters. The Introduction briefly presents the overview of studies over minority customary law. The first chapter briefly introduces the creation and development of Zhuang customary law. The second chapter focuses on Zhuang inheritance habits in which male as heir in principle with female as exception, jus sanguinis in principle with fictitious relative as exception, property distribution before death in principle with after death as exception, the younger generation to inherit in principle with the elder to inherit as exception. Identity inheritance and property inheritance of Zhuang are also involved in this chapter. The third chapter analyzes the reasons of change with regard to the content and characteristics of Zhuang customary law of succession. The author gets the conclusion that to understand Zhuang customary law through inheritance domain by discussing and summarizing the rationality, plays an important part in building of socialist legal system, which is significant for maintaining national unification, strengthening national unity and promoting common prosperity and progress of all ethnic groups. |
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