Effectiveness Of Husband And Wife Loyalty Agreement

With the prosperity of modern society’s economic civilization, people are having changing values on marriage, which means the condition of the loyalty between husband and wife tends to become diversified, involving economic status, powers and so on instead of being maintained simply by the love between them. For the past few years, the Loyalty Agreement between Husband and Wife is gaining increasing popularity, continuously causing relevant legal disputes. However, there is no unified standard for such loyalty agreement neither in law nor in the judicial practice.The Loyalty Agreement between Husband and Wife is a primary legal relation in marriage and family life, while the Premarital Loyalty Agreement System stipulates the loyalty between the intending spouses on legal grounds, should be considered as a significant component of Chinese marriage law. In the Law of Marriage and relevant judicial interpretation, there includes no regulations on the loyalty agreement between the husband and wife. In reality, increasing conclusion of the loyalty agreement between intending spouses, together with the lacking of relevant stipulations, is causing a range of issues. In pace with the promotion of the reform and opening-up policy, also the establishment and improvement of socialist economy system, Chinese people are enjoying richer material life and being more influenced by western values than before. Thus conventional ideas are gradually broke away, presenting more open values on marriage and family. Many aspects of contemporary society, including values, legal consciousness and so on, are showing a diversified trend, which means the government and legislation should be able to give adequate right to its citizens,based on the level of material and spiritual civilization. Under the background of diversified economic benefits, people are gaining more awareness of the independence between the husband and wife, signing the loyalty agreement can be regarded as a specific legal guideline for the court and the parties involved in matrimonial disputes, solving entanglement related to the agreement effectively. The rapid development of market economy is promoting the growth of civil law notion;therefore, with status codes being replaced by contract law, citizens’ attitude to legislation is experiencing a transition from knowing and observing the law to utilizing and having faith in law. In the field of civil law, when the legal regulation is found to be insufficient for the disloyal behavior between the husband and wife, civil law autonomy tends to make supplement for it, causing the emergence of loyalty agreement between husband and wife. However, the Loyalty Agreement between Husband and Wife is not only related to civil law autonomy, but also closely connected to status right, fundamental rights of citizen etc. Meanwhile, it refers to the most complicated topic in the field of jurisprudence – the relationship between the law and morality. All of the above are making the argumentation on validity of the Loyalty Agreement complicated and confusing. During the drafting of Judicial Interpretation of Marriage Law, the Loyalty Agreement was mentioned, which evoked different opinions from legists and experts of judicial practice and finally avoided in the legislation without solution. This article is written to explore and analyze the validity of Loyalty Agreement between Husband and Wife.Loyalty Agreement between Husband and Wife can be seen as a method of risk preventing and marriage managing based on legislative spirit and social values of existing laws. Since the Loyalty Agreement accords with the goal and value of marriage laws, and at the same time presenting the participation of marriage parties, it should be recognized and improved in legal method. The article introduces background of its generation, character, function of the Loyalty Agreement between Husband and Wife, analyzes the necessity and feasibility of its validity, and gives specific suggestion on improving its validity from the angles of legislation and judicature.