On The Marital Loyalty Agreement

With the rapid development of the economy,the divorce rate in China is getting higher.In order to maintain the stability of marriage,an increasing number of couples now choose to sign a marriage loyalty agreement,which is a new form of contract that has evolved with the development of society.Although China stipulates the loyalty obligations of husband and wife in "Marriage Law",specific provisions on husband and wife loyalty agreement are not made yet.In the initial draft solicitation of the Judicial Interpretation of Marriage Law(3),the legislator wanted to confirm the validity of the marital loyalty agreement before such cases were dismissed and,finally an attitude of avoidance was taken up towards such cases in the formal draft.The attitude of Supreme People's Court's towards the effectiveness of the marital loyalty agreement has been ambiguous,which made this issue dealt without clear legal basis.To this end,confusion in the judicial process was caused and widespread attention was drawn among scholars on this issue.The loyalty obligation between husband and wife was raised from the moral level to the legal level according to Article 4 of China's Marriage Law,however,this is merely a legally advocated obligation with no enforcement power.The agreement essentially takes a form of concretion of principled regulation,making it accessible for litigation.Therefore,marital loyalty agreement arising from each party to the spouse with fully civil legal capacity,which is signed on the basis of equality and willingness and conforms to true intention under the premise that the content of the agreement does not violate laws and regulations and public order,should be under legal protection.Through the empirical analysis method,this paper takes as the starting point the basic theory of the concept and nature of the loyalty agreement of the husband and wife,and furthermore divides the marital loyalty agreement into the property marital loyalty agreement and the personal marital loyalty agreement,so as to draw an conclusion based on the analysis of the agreement content.The conclusion is that the effectiveness of property marital loyalty agreement should be encouraged while the effectiveness ofpersonal marital loyalty agreement denied.The scope of this paper is not limited to the validity of the husband and wife loyalty agreement.Through value analysis method,the current judicial trial cases are sorted out and studied to understand the judicial recognition of the couple's loyalty agreement in current trial activities,and consequently major obstacles arising in the trial process were summarized.Combined with the current laws and regulations and national conditions in China,this paper aims to propose corresponding legislative and judicial proposals for the main problems,and hopefully achieve the realization of better autonomy in the private law field and,better guidance and protection of the law.Part purpose of the paper is to make the husband and wife loyalty agreement a tool for citizens to truly safeguard their legitimate rights and interests and maintain family stability and social order.