The Study Of Inheritance Institution During The Early Republic Of China (1912-1928)

Inherited object in ancient Chinese society were mainly to be divided two classes: identity and property. Identity inheritance was established “the lineal primogeniture system” principles as early as the Western Zhou period, and was continued by the feudal society; property inheritance was undergone family property to “equal sharing out of property among sons”. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, inheritance system gone to the principles, and formed the mature and perfect system.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial feudal country. With western ideologies spreading and legal thoughts brought, great changes have taken place in the Chinese traditional value of law and ideas of law under the political and ideological dual transformation. The feudal rulers eager for a series of changes to solve the serious troubles both at home and abroad situation, for enriching the national power. The changes included the Chinese feudal society legal change combining the western legal system and legal thoughts. "Draft of Great Qing Dynasties’ Civil Code" was the product of that transformations. Chapter parentage and Succession were compiled by incorporating principles of traditional succession and benefiting from the western legal system and legal thoughts. Because of the political environment, the limit of legislative techniques and legislative techniques, the parliament didn’t enacted a consolidated Civil Code in the Early Republic. In this unordered legal states, Supreme Court recognized the ‘Active Criminal Law of Qing Dynasty’, civil customs and Jurisprudence as the sources of law.As the highest judicial authorities, the Supreme Court’s judgments were guiding significance for all over the country. Succession case in the Supreme Court’s civil cases was classified to and heir Inheriting cases and distribution of property cases by ancestral inheritance and property inheritance. So we could draw a conclusion that Supreme Court formed the formulae of explaining the traditional succession using the western legal concept by studying the law practice about inheritance laws’ legal precedent and integrated the traditional succession and the western succession.Law was a reflection of social reality. Chinese society in the Early Republic presented old and new mixed together situation and the succession also presented characteristic of conservative and innovative in Early Republic. The conservatism basically was behaved that ancestral inheritance existed in the succession and ancestral inheritance was a prerequisite for property inheritance. The innovation was behaved that those with different surname people were allow to family tree and widow was given by right of choosing an adopted son, and distribution of property was flexibly tackled, and the daughter’s property of inheritance was promoted. Inspecting the Supreme Court’s Civil cases in the judicial practice level, I summarized the influence about Supreme Court’s judicial practice to “Draft of The Republic’ Civil Code”. This draft was close to the social reality which Supreme Court’s Civil integrated the traditional succession, customs and the western succession.