The Case Law Research Of The Property Rights Of Women In Southern Song Dynasty

This paper is based on the book The Collection of Pure and Bright Court Verdict MadeBy famous Officials. From the analysis of the women’s property rights jurisprudence, it willbe divided into two parts, a woman as a daughter with her father family and a woman as awife with her husband family。From these cases, we can learn about the real situation of theproperty rights of women in the southern song dynasty. That is ‘women can be assignedown share’ and ‘women have her property’. And from these cases, we can reveal thefeatures of the women’s property rights referee in Southern Song Dynasty, e.g. reasonablewill be taking into account, attaches great importance to maintain the relationship betweenbrother and sister, mother and son, in regard to the disputes among relatives it usually usemore civilized form of a lighter punishment and so on. We’ll explain the reason of thewomen’s right to own property and be inspired by them.To her father’s family,‘women can be assigned own share’ means the unmarried girlscan get dowry property. It related to the civil Dowry practice habits. But the most directreason is the parents’ love. To her husband’s family,‘women have own property’ means themarried women can use and make the property appreciation. It’s very common and it’sallowed by her husband family. On the other hand, when the foreign signed a land salecontract, whether their widowed mother had absence is important to determine the contractvalid or not. For the purpose to protect the security of transactions, the Pure and BrightCourt Verdict are also strict compliance with the contract. So the differences gender of theContract party will be ignored. In addition, by learning the case law about the women’sproperty, we could found the difference about safeguarding women’s rights and interestsbetween today and the old times in the civil judgment. Even, we can find a place that thejudgment in the southern song dynasty is better than now. Such as pay more attention to thefamily harmony, consider much more to the dependency of the descendants, often exhortedto respect their elders and take good care of the children. This paper is based on the realcases happened in song dynasty about women’s property. And because it’s using thefist-hand materials in the book The Collection of Pure and Bright Court Verdict Made Byfamous Officials, so it’s feasible.To study the women’s property rights laws and referee in the Southern Song Dynasty,the mainly learning is the Households Marriage Law in the Criminal Song and the cases inthe Qing-Ming collection; they are not only static but also dynamic basis. The CriminalSong is a comprehensive code, and the Households Marriage Law is the main provisions ofthe property of the marriage and family. The Qing-Ming collection is the collection of pureand bright court verdict made by famous officials. Each of these cases is real happened and has great impacted in the Southern Song Dynasty. This book has437cases. In each case, itrecords the details, the evidence of the two sides, the referenced law and the verdict of thecase. It provides a rich resource of researching on the song dynasty legal history, Nomology, Social History. This paper will filter out all the cases about the women’s property andinterest, and will express by diagrams and statistics.Private property and inheritance makes the family as an economic unit of society.There is express provision about the women inherit property law since the Tang Dynasty.To the Song dynasty, the rule of law is more detailed. In this paper, the theory "Women’sProperty Rights" is unlike the previous study of "women’s right to inherit property".Predecessors are trying to reveal the original condition of women’s lives in the SongDynasty from historical, sociological point of view. From the perspective of law history, thepurpose of the paper issued mostly lies in the analysis of women’s status by studyingwomen’s property rights. Furthermore, the studies of women’s property rights are alsolimited in the presence or absence of the right to inherit property. In fact, the range ofwomen’s property rights is greater than the right to inherit property. To illustrate thisproblem, this article will take Qing-Ming collection as the main basis, all cases of thewomen’s property right will divided into the daughter and father’s house property disputesand as a wife and her husband’s property disputes. It illustrates that the women’s propertyrights actually also contains the expectant right on dowry before married, the rights inproceeds and the right of disposition after married, the retrieve of the dowry right whenremarried, and as a widowed mother obtaining property when the family property areassigned, the widowed mother can also obtaining property through contracts tradinginterests.