Reviews Of Females'Marital Problem At Song Dynasty Based On "Compilation Of Just Verdicts By Famous Judges"

Marital problems have been always an important part of social problems, which is also a significant aspect of ancient Chinese culture. But at ancient China, females'life space was limited primarily to the family, there are no doubts that marital problems became a main part of their lives. People have the view that females at Song Dynasty always stayed at home without speech rights and property rights, actually it is not true. This paper based on"Compilation of Just Verdicts by Famous Judges", attempts to analyze the Song Dynasty female's marital problems from law history angle, then explores this deep roots of the issue, and draw a lesson from it, so as to maintains and improves feminine legal status by provide historical law culture support.This paper has three parts. The first part mainly discusses females'remarries of Song dynasty. Females'remarries were very natural and universal at that time. There are many history records about females'remarries. This part analyzes females'remarries from different angles. First we must affirm the fact that Song Dynasty females'remarries universally existed. Meanwhile, we must realize there are several unknown factors behind this phenomenon, waiting for us to deepen. The second part is about Song Dynasty female's property rights. Whether widows obtained property from their father, or inherited the inheritances from their husband, widows at Song Dynasty had inherited property rights. They still had status and rights at family and marriage. Society and laws give them many freedoms. We should say that females at Song Dynasty also enjoyed some rights and status at family and marriage. The third part is about Song Dynasty female's status at home. Since the patrilineal clan society, ancient China females' status has gradually dropped. People always regard Song Dynasty as the turning point of females' status dropping. This part analyzes Song Dynasty females'marriage status from controlling trousseau and managing household affairs. We must acknowledge that they had some rights at property and marital aspect, but can not overestimate about it.In a word, although Neo-Confucianism was produced and gradually established at Song Dynasty, we must admit there are some bias and misunderstanding to Neo-Confucianism. These theories had not played important roles at that time, but symbolized females'status has dropped from theory and idea aspect. Therefore, females'status of Song Dynasty was not suddenly worsened as some scholars said. Song Dynasty is also not the milestone of females'status changing. If we must draw a conclusion about females'status of this period .we can only say that this is a transition period of females'status changing, which has made theory preparation for females'status declining at Ming and Qing Dynasty.