A Comparative Study On The Legal Status Of The Wife And The Concubine In The Period Of Beiyang Government

The period of the Republic of China is the most important turning point in the modern history of China,is also the most turbulent and transformative period of social life.Especially in the period of Beiyang government,traditional etiquette system and the modernization of the requirements intersected,causing the society presented complex situation.In terms of law,the civil judicial practice based on The Effective Section of the Current Criminal Law on Civil Affairs,which is the law of the late Qing Dynasty actually,and it was unable to meet the requirements of the law in the social transformation situation.Therefore,the Central Judicial Office named Dali Court made up for the deficiency of current law by announcing cases and interpretation laws.With the spread of new ideas of the West,the social demands for the liberation of women's rights are becoming increasingly fierce,and the rights of the two special women groups have received great attention and become the focus of the women's liberation movement.In such a special period of historical transformation,what are the differences in the status of the wives and their own new situation is the main problem of this study.On the one hand,this paper is based on the provisions of the two legal texts of The Effective Section of the Current Criminal Law on Civil Affairsand the Draft Law of the Republic of Chinaduring the period of Beiyang government.On the other hand,the relevant rules established by the Dali Court ruling case are described as supplementary information.The first part of this paper is mainly related to the legal status of the wives and concubines in traditional society.In the traditional position of the wife,the author first elaborate the wife's definition,synthesizing the research results of the predecessors,then defined the wife as the official spouse of the man who had to pass the specific procedure of the ritual custom.Secondly,through the discussion of the identity of the wife to obtain a strict etiquette procedures,so that the procedure with the concubine comparison,but also with the later period of the Northern Government in the process of marriage corresponding to the process.Finally,on the one hand by describing the wife and husband's external relations and internal relations to state the wife's position.on the other hand,describing the wife relative to the concubine and descendants of the family's respect for status.In the traditional position of concubine,this article first elaborated the definition of concubine,and then elaborated the man to buy concubine,change concubine,received as a gift,etc.to determine the identity of the concubine,and finally elaborate the concubine's humble identity in the traditional society.The second part is the key part of this article.Firstly,the legal background of the Beiyang government period is briefly described,which limits the legal text of the author's study as The Effective Section of the Current Criminal Law on Civil Affairs and the Draft Civil law of the Republic of China.Then the author choose the provisions of the concubine of the wife,the concubine's family status,as well as the regulations of the wife and the concubine to terminate the relationship to explain.The author choose these three aspects of the study,seemingly no rules.but in fact,the whole aspects are depicted around the relationship between the wives and husband to elaborate.The author explain how the woman to obtain the identity of the wives firstly,and then discuss their family status after being one of the family members,and finally discuss the breakup relationship with husband,namely,the loss of the identity of the provisions of them.The three aspects involved in this section are analyzed separately from the provisions of the legal texts and the rules defined by the Dali Court cases.In addition,due to the special social situation of the Beiyang government period,there have been some new situations on the wives and concubines.Therefore,when discussing the family status of the wives and concubines,the author also elaborated the wife's daily family agency and the influence of the new ideas the emergence of new concubines.The third part of this article is the conclusion part,mainly summarizes the contents of this article.The author sums up the contents of the comparative study of the status of the wife and the concubine in the Beiyang government and the summary of the findings.The two groups of the wives in the Beiyang government period are generally protected legal or judicial aspects in terms of their legal status and rights.And a certain degree of the concubine have a wider freedomthan the wife,but it can not stop the concubine have gradually faded to the historical trend.The author hope that through the status of the concubine legal status of the research results,so the reader can understand the law of the Beiyang government from this angle that the tradition and modernization of the contradictory struggle between the twists and turns forward.