Research On Marital Property System During Early Republic Of China

The early Republic of China is a special stage in the history of China’s legal system. Due to the invasion of western countries and the development of China’s capitalism, peasant economy gradually disintegrated, “cohabitation finances” mode lasted for thousands of years in China influenced by personal property, patriarchal model also challenged by the egalitarian. The change of the social environment require legal must be adjusted. In this context, due to the lack of statute, case-law of Dali Court has become an important principle to guide people’s daily life, so the research and discussion on the judicial cases of Dali Court, you can clearly see the marital property system in the early Republic of China at the time, and Dali Court how to comply with the requirements of the times, pursuit of gender equality efforts.This idea is based on the analysis of domestic and foreign research status, by contrast, and the method of case analysis. First, the traditional Chinese method under the framework of the marital property system pattern based on source and property are introduced, in traditional society, husband enjoys absolute control of the common property, wife’s rights was completely absorbed by the husband. Although the private property actually existed in society, the legal never expressly provide for marital property relations made. Secondly, the relationship between marital property of Dali Court cases are studied. The focus is divided into two cases: one is the distribution of property management during the marital relationship; the another is the property management distribution when the relationship between husband and wife is released. The latter also can be divided into two kinds of situations, caused by divorce rescission of the relationship between husband and wife or caused by the death of one of the couple. Also, the death of a spouse can be divided into two kinds, death of husband or death of his wife. Under the condition the death of husband, the allocation and management of property for the wife is more complex, because if there is a son or else is different. This paper first addresses private property can be separated from a large family and become independent property, and then through the judgment of cases in the form of the above are to be analyzed. We can see the Dali Court seeking gender equality efforts, conforming to the historical trend of the times, is conducive to China in the process of the traditional legal system to the modern legal system transition. Of course, Dali Court has its historical limitation due to the social reality.This paper argues that the Dali Court cases in the marital property system is the beginning of the law on gender equality, is a crucial move in the transition from the old to the new time, is the legal practice of thought “mixed law”. It enlightens that our legal system reform should be based on social reality, and moves with the times.