A Study Of The Female Inheritance System During The National Government Of Nanjing

In traditional Chinese society,women did not have independent personality and social status,therefore,before modern times,women could inherit very limited property.After the Opium War in 1840,with the gradual disintegration of the small peasant economy and the rapid development of national industry and commerce,more and more women were given employment opportunities,and the economic status of women was enhanced.1926,during the Northern Expedition War Chiang Kai-shek promulgated the Resolution on Women’s Movement in order to gain the support of a large group of women,encouraging women to join the National Revolution,and women began to have the right to political discourse.At the same time,due to the spread of Western concepts of freedom and equality in China,women’s movements around the country increased their awareness of human rights and women’s rights.As women’s economic and political discourse increased,a group of feminists emerged in the society,who did not limit themselves to the slogan of gender equality and the advocacy of women’s right to education,but focused more on women’s property rights and the equal inheritance rights of men and women in family relations,in order to achieve equality in the real sense.The establishment of inheritance rights has a long history of development in China,and women’s inheritance rights have gone through a long stage of exploration,development and transformation.In the late Qing Dynasty,the Qing government drafted the "Great Qing Civil Law Draft" in order to save the Qing Dynasty that was about to collapse.After the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912,the Beiyang government promulgated the Draft Civil Law,which gave daughters the right to share their parents’ inheritance at their discretion.Although all of the above-mentioned acts contributed to the advancement of women’s inheritance rights to a certain extent,the demands of women’s groups for equal rights to inheritance between men and women were truly answered during the Nanjing National Government.From the Resolution on the Women’s Movement to the Rules for the Enforcement of Retroactive Inheritance for Married Women to the Civil Law-Inheritance,the legislators’ rejection of traditional ancestral succession and the further clarification and refinement of women’s inheritance rights can be seen as a gradual improvement in women’s living environment at that time.It can be said that during this period,women’s legal personality began to become independent,and their legal identity gradually transitioned from a duty-based to a rights-based one.The conflict between the advanced legislative spirit and the lagging folk legal consciousness was inevitably reflected through judicial practice.In the specific judicial practice,the time of inheritance,whether the parents have the intention to let their daughters inherit,the professionalism of the judge and whether the women themselves have the courage to insist on the case,etc.all affect and even determine the final direction of the case.Although some women’s claims were not realized due to these factors,on the whole,compared to the traditional feudal society where women were excluded from inheriting family estates,women gradually began to hold equal rights to inheritance with men during the Nanjing National Government.When comparing the realization of women’s inheritance rights under the Beiyang government with that of the Nanjing National government,the latter has made great progress,such as establishing equal inheritance rights for men and women in legislation.In contrast,when comparing the legislative and judicial provisions of the Nanjing National Government with those of the Shaanxi-Ganjiang-Ningxia Border Region Government,the protection of women’s inheritance rights by the Nanjing National Government was clearly inadequate,both in form and in practice.Therefore,the study of women’s inheritance rights during the Nanjing National Government can,on the one hand,analyze the evolutionary path of women’s inheritance rights in modern China;on the other hand,it also reflects the attitude of the Nanjing National Government authorities toward women’s rights.In addition,by analyzing the problems that arose in the process of realizing women’s inheritance rights under the Nanjing National Government,such as the change of national laws did not keep pace with the change of people’s thoughts,the lack of implementation of women’s rights protection and the professionalism of judges,it also has a certain reference and warning effect on modern inheritance legislation in China,so as to establish a more perfect legal system in the road of rule of law in the future.