Further Discussion Of The 1950 "People’s Republic Of China Marriage Law" Implementation And Enforcement Cases

If the family is the basic building block of society, than marriage is the basic tie, which brings the family together. The institution of marriage is to adapt to the current political and economic environment, in relation to the social structures of society, marriage can exert different functions thus a healthy society can be effectively organized. May 1,1950, the Central People’s Government promulgated the "People’s Republic of China Marriage Law" (hereinafter referred to as the "Marriage Law"), in the form of a legal framework to guide the marriage and family relations, the establishment of a new institution of marriage was built, all done in order to lay the foundation for stable social reform. In order to correctly implement "marriage" onto the new social framework of China’s post liberation society, from 1951 to 1953, under the leadership of the party, the country launched its implementation of the "Marriage Law" campaign. However, previous research into "Marriage law" shows that the implementation of such social grassroots campaigns encountered various problems, one being the gap between the "Marrige Law" legislation and its enforcement. Further Analysis explain that the causes of the problem in the implementation stem from the old bureaucratic system, in which leading cadre’s would be bogged down in a mountain of papers and sea of meetings in Chinese "Wen Shan Hui Hai." Further discussion on "Wen Shan Hui Hai" is needed to produce a more comprehensive and overall objective picture of the real history, providing modern lawmakers and government officials with the background information needed to better face future problems and well as improve the implementation of future laws and regulations.This paper relies on the reports, and other archives as a typical example of the core empirical material, combined with local history materials of the early days of planned implementation of the new Marriage Law in Southern Jiangsu Province. Sunan region to implementation of the new marriage law is divided into four phases and is investigated thoroughly. Specifically, this paper divided the implementation of the new marriage law into four chapters and analyses the law came about from its conception to implementation and finally its lasting influence on modern China.The first chapter investigates the historical basis for the 1950 "Marriage Law" and its contents. The first chapter also details and focuses on the differences between the "Qing Draft Civil Law ● relatives Code", the Government of the Republic of Nanjing "Republic of China Civil Law ● Relatives Code" and the characteristics of the CPC marriage legislation. Finally by analyzing the 1950 "marriage" statute, its legislative purpose as well as point out the progress of the law.The second chapter details the implementation process of the Marriage Law (especially in the Sunan regions). The second chapter lists the implementation and enforcement of the new marriage plans, reports, and typical examples. After organizing all of the information into two stages in order to reveal the historical process of the movement. By dissecting "Marriage Law" into two parts the law itself and the campaign surrounding it and then the combined effects of various methods and strategies of the campaign itself and its results. The first section is the "marriage law" and examines the implementation phase (1951.7～1952.12). After the "Marriage Law" took effect there were problems due to its implementation, some problems included women’s suicide rates increased, as well as murder rates especially mariticide. To solve this problem, the central release of several documents, all in order to study and examine implementation of marriage law, and made some amendments, but it did not really solve the problem Section II, deals with the methods to publicize and implement the Marriage Movement months (1953.1～1953.12). In order to correct the deviation of the law, the CPC Central Committee decided to launch a nationwide campaign to address the implementation of the "Marriage Law". After a preparatory phase of the campaign, and when the campaign was in full swing a more significant change can be seen.The third chapter covers three years, "Marriage law" content and its implementation movement. This section first affirmed the effectiveness of the campaign: the basic completion of the "Marriage Law" its the main task was-the abolition of arranged marriages, bigamy, concubinage, child brides and other backward feudal marriage customs. Initially set up through out the whole society, the marriage registration system and the concept of freedom of marriage and divorce were also established. This chapter also points out the shortcomings of implementing the "Marriage Law" campaign: In the months after the campaign, the country was were still facing serious marital problems such as gender equality, the protection of the rights and interests of women and children were not totally recognized. The work to implement the new law also caused many problems, to be more specific two problems emerged:one is the economic basis of "Marriage law" and its backwardness, the laws objectives and prevailing socio-economic environment does not match. The economic base determines the superstructure, the employment rate of women was very low, the social security system has not yet been established, many these issues remain unresolved, "Marriage laws" pursuit of "gender equality" and "freedom of divorce" is impossible to truly achieve. The second problem is the confusion of justice. During the establishment of modern China, China’s legal system was not perfect; the quality of the concentrated expression of the judicial process and judicial officers is unreasonably low. Furthermore, the implementation of the "Marriage Law" work in these two areas has not improved; on the contrary, through mass movement and judicial reform, these problems have only become more serious. The Underlining influence of political ideas in a totalitarian country has established a "Marriage law" and its implantation movement but ignores the dividing line between public power and individual rights as well as interests over state power to intervene in private life. This not only caused a lot of unnecessary conflict and tragedy, but also caused the fruits of victory achieved only more fragile because of the states need for power and control. Although the Central government has repeatedly emphasized the need to implement and revamp the "Marriage Law" as critical, but in fact once the party and government organs metastasis focus, a lot of marital problems will not only be left unresolved, the problems are often repeated, moreover if order is established it is often left unsubstantiated and with no lasting presence on society.