The Influence Of The Patriarchal Society To The Modern Chinese Constitutional Government

Patriarchal society is the mother of social forms of traditional Chinese society,and civil society is the forms of Western society. In some sense, the difference hasmade the West and China went towards a completely different constitutionalgovernment.Comparing China with the western countries and investigating the law ofsocial development to make a history research, this thesis study the question fromthe conception and development of the two social forms to discuss the reason forthe failure of modern China constitutional government. The similarities anddifferences of the two social forms, why constitutional government, as a product ofthe western countries, cannot grow and be adopted in practice, and theconstitutional spirit among the civil society are all the important content of thisthesis.From the constitutional point of view, the constitutional research is the eternaltheme of legal historical studies. Modern China is like a world constitutional Expoor a constitution laboratory. From the Constitutionalism in the Late Qing Dynastyto the National Government, it seems that modern China was unlikely to be able toestablish the constitutional system. I humbly believe that constitutionalgovernment requires a suitable economic, culture and history condition, whichChina had not equipped for constitutionalism. So it is hard for China in the past tobuild a perfect constitutional structure. In the writing process, I also study Chinesepatriarchal society of thousands of years compared with civil society in westerncountries in order to reveal the reasons for the failure in constitutional government in modern history of China from a different perspective.The unique identity attribute in the patriarchal society led to the absence ofthe spirit of the contract, a strong centralized government and the ideology ofnatural law. All these, to some extent, has led the constitutional government unableto originate in China, and also made it difficult to introduce the constitutionalgovernment from overseas.In addition to the institution, Constitutional government includes theconcept. With the guidance of the law, the concept is merged with the institutionand a complete constitutional system is created. Its basic elements contain freedom,democracy and the rule of law. In traditional Chinese society, the public did nothave the concept of these three. First of all, from the criminal point of view, a greatnumber of offenses and penalties are set up for the maintenance of monarchicalpower, patriarchy and the husband for the purpose. Secondly, in the field of privatelaw, the Confucian moral principles guided people to practice, to solve practicalproblems, the law established maintain the ceremony of patriarchal ethics, andeven the criminal rules were applied to deal with much behavior which shouldadjusted by the civil law, which led to the underdevelopment of the ancientChinese concept of rights. Furthermore, in a society governed by the rule of law,the law as a universally binding code of conduct for all members of society shouldbe unconditional adherence to apply equally, regardless of their social status andidentity, but in ancient China, in order to maintain the patriarchal ethics, the law isapplied differently due to different actors, and penalty is aggravated or mitigateddue to ethical. Officials were granted the privilege in the law. Once they broke through the law, the officials could not be punished. The lack of the concept ofequality is incompatible with constitutional government.Contemporary China is now building a country ruled by law, theconstitutional system does not mean a simple system to build because of theabsence of traditional rule of law. Only when people generally have the freedom,democracy, rights and other values, will bear rich fruit of the constitutionalgovernment in future. The transition from the patriarchal society to civil society isthe only way for the development of constitutionalism. Civil society with the spiritof the contract is the basis for the birth of constitutional culture, since modernconstitutional government is generated in the struggle between the civil society andpolitical country. Studying the theory of civil society and building Chinese civilsociety will help us protect the valuable constitutional concept and make a goodpreparation for the rule of law in the future.