Research On Marital Separate Propetry System

Marital separate property system is one of the marital property systems, which is widelyadopted by nations of the world now. When separate property system is applicable, husband andwife owe the property separately, they can use the property and make profit or disposal theirproperty without obstruction. But in this situation it does not exclude the husband and wife agreeto set a few property as the common property. The marriage law in China makes little provisionfor separate property system and it just appears when husband and wife make contracts whichmakes people have no law to comply with when they want to adopt it. On the other side, the lawsof other country make detailed provision for separate property system and the people in thesecountries adopt it widely. With the development of our society，improvement of the status ofwomen and with the enhancement of women’s economic strength, equality of sexes is accepted bymore and more people and the defect of joint property system that does not reflect theindependent personality becomes more and more obvious. The author believes that there isnecessary to study the separate property system. With the study of its development in othercountries and the situation of our society, the article tries to reflect the deficiencies of ourcountry’s legislation in the separate property system. And the article tries to study foreignexperience to perfect our country’s marital separate property system.The marital separate property system first appears in ancient Rome’s law. But it is notformally established until the year of1935when England established it formally. Theestablishment of marital separate property system is an inevitable trend of social development andhas great progressive significance in terms of promoting gender equality.But in the same time, ithas a defect that ignoring the economic value of housework which obeyed the principle ofsubstantive equality between husband and wife. Because of it, some countries absorbed the factorsof common property system to perfect their separate property systems which promote thedevelopment of it in the world. Between the countries, the income sharing property system ofSwiss is the most representative. It is in the basis of separate property system, absorbing thefactors of common property system to form a compound form. In this compound form, husbandand wife can manage and disposal their property without interference which respects theindependence of personality and property between husband and wife. And at the end of the system,the spouses can get half of the other one’s surplus of income property which protects thesubstantive equality and has great enlightenment to China’s legislation.Due to the inadequate family law of our country and the influence of traditional family values, the legislative deficiency about separate property system is obvious. Now our country’sMarriage Law just provides couples may agree to implement separate property system, but thereare no specific content regulations such as the property rights and obligations of the husband andwife, cost burdens of married life, property management, liquidation and division and so on. Thatresults in the couple applies to the separate property system when no laws. At this stage, theeconomic status of women has been increasing dramatically and the individual wealth has beenincreasing largely. And following it, Chinese people are in great needs to adopt separate propertysystem and so we urgently need to improve the legislation.The author thinks that our family law needs to reconstruct the separate property system. Notonly should we provide for its specific contents when it appears in couples agreements, but alsoshould we reference Switzerland legislation experience to introduce the compound form ofseparate property system as our country’s matrimonial regime. The community property systemwe adopt now has irreparable defects, it may not only cause management rights disputes betweenhusband and wife but also affect the transaction security. And the compound form of Swiss is inline with the development trend of legal property system of the world. It meets the requirementsof personal independence and equality between husband and wife and of cause it is feasible inChina. First, it meets the development trend of our country’s legal property system. Second, itadapts to the fact that the economic status of women improves gradually and individuals pay moreattention on property rights. Third, it is easy to be accepted by people in China.We need to reference Switzerland compound form to reconstruct the separate propertysystem in China. There should be general rule and positive evaluation of the economic value ofthe housework in our system. And when it comes to the family burden of cost for living, externalresponsibility of property, the liquidation and division of property and so on, we should make surethe foreign experiences combined with China’s reality. The author tries to put forward somesuggestions to contribute to the reconstruction of our country’s separate property system.