The Research On Disputes And Suits Of Family Property In Song Dynasty

During the Song Dynasty period,the development of commodity economy had reached to a very high level,the concept of righteousness and benefit of Confucianism had met a great challenge,and the concept of utilitarianism was undoubtedly in line with the Song Dynasty's commercial development social background,therefore the concept of utilitarianism was widely admired at that time.People changed their views on litigation,and no longer considered litigation as a shame.This impelled the formation of chastening style.The emergence of the idea of no respecter on lowliness nor nobleness had constantly impacted the ancient Chinese hier archy,weakened personal dependence relation,and people pursued the equality on legal status.All these objectively provided a social foundation and ideological basis for the formation of the Song Dynasty's civil family property litigation.In the Song Dynasty,there were various common family property types.Different types have different applications.According to historical books,we can find that the family property analysis has different applications on temporary parts,parents' pension field,family's tomb field and trousseaux property.From the view of historical wheel,the Song Dynasty is the transformation of the ancient society,with the unprecedented economic development,the thought of considering interests as first choice impacted tradition social customs on a certain extent.Therefore,a series of disputes which were caused by family common property were normal.In the Song dynasty,in order to reduce disputes and litigation,dynasts made a series of stipulations on family disputes among family members.But events do not happen as one wishes,because of temptation of interests,there were many tort actions.The inheritance of Song Dynasty was mainly legal inheritance(including subrogation inheritance),followed by family inheritance and specified inheritance.Although the Confucianists emphasized on mutual respect between brothers,in the process ofproperty inheritance,family members competed with each other for property and interests,and disputes caused by family property inheritance were very common.The widespread emergence of such problems were mainly derived from the family members' concerned issues and involve vital interests issues,such as farmland,gardens,marriage,money and so on.The author makes a careful study on special property disputes and inheritance in Song Dynasty,and tries to find out the similarities in these types of litigations,focuses on refining and summarizing internal and external factors which caused disputes in the Song Dynasty,and different handing ways,thoughts of ruling class.The author hopes that it will provide some different thoughts and perspectives for new changes of family property disputes in Legislative and judicial areas.