The Research On Contemporary Chinese Marriage And Family System From The Perspective Of Cultural Traditions

Researching on the law from the stand point of culture has been an important topic in the academic circle. Since marriage and family system as an important part of legal system, a cultural study on it seems to be reasonable.The relation of marriage and family is one of the basic social relationships, which is characterized by the combination of both sexes and the connection of blood, the legal system adjusting that social relationship is the marriage and family system. And cultural traditions refer to the cultural factors that deriving from the accumulations of traditional society and still having an impact on the reality of modern society. Because the relationship of marriage and family of a country is often associated with the national culture shaped spontaneously in the long-term historical practice, this relationship is especially culture-characterized, which makes a country’s system of marriage and family closely related the native cultural traditions.Through the investigation and analysis on contemporary Chinese marriage and family system, we can find the cultural traditions’ connotation in the contemporary marriage and family system. Furthermore, the most widely used and the relatively representative institutions are the opposite sex marriage system, family mediation system and the strict system of divorce. They are respectively based on not only the traditional philosophy of Yin Yang and the continuity of the family, the concept of peacefulness, and the pursuit of stable marriage, but also the corresponding traditional systems.Under the influence of western culture, although contemporary Chinese marriage and family system retain the part which consistent with the cultural traditions, the system still appeared to be out of the social reality and the public awareness and even broke with cultural traditions, to a certain extent. The outstanding performance of the disconnection between contemporary China marriage and family system and cultural traditions is that: China has the cultural traditions of the engagement, the de facto marriage, and the respect for parents and love for children, but the contemporary marriage and family system does not have corresponding subscriptions on these aspects.To perfect contemporary Chinese marriage and family system, we need to depend on the respect of our cultural traditions, because the effective implementation of marriage and family system is not simply relies on the force of the country, its fundamental guarantee should also be the corresponding cultural support so that the nation owns its national identity and belief. Of course, this is not to say that the construction of China’s modern marriage and family system can be separated from the economic foundation and the democratic politics background, and be blindly based on the cultural traditions. Sometimes, this process of construction also needs to keep balance. Thus, the engagement system, the system of de facto marriage, and Jing CI system can rely on the corresponding cultural traditions as the supplementary systems to contemporary Chinese marriage and family system. What’s more, in this way, contemporary Chinese marriage and family system can also get a direction to walk on the track of the cultural traditions and become more perfect.