| Since the 1990 s,the number of intermarriages between citizens of the mainland,Hong Kong and Macau has been on the rise,especially in Guangdong Province.Taking Hong Kong as an example,as of 2016,50,008 couples had registered for marriage,of which 17,367 were cross-border marriages between the mainland and Hong Kong,accounting for 34.7%.After the handover of Hong Kong and Macau,the number of intermarriage between the two places has increased significantly,and the situation of intermarriage has become more complicated.In the past only mainland women married to Hong Kong and Macau men,as the time goes by mainland men started to marry with Hong Kong and Macau women.In 2019,the development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area began to be implemented,encouraging Hong Kong and Macao residents to start businesses,work,and live in the nine Pearl River Delta cities,and establish a demonstration zone for in-depth cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong.The residents’ communication between the mainland,Hong Kong and Macau will be deepened,so that intermarriage is becoming more and more common.However,due to specific historical reasons,there are three jurisdictions which lead to implementation of different marriage legal systems in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.Although China has restored sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao,according to the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and the Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China,Hong Kong and Macao enjoy a high degree of autonomy and adopt an independent legal system.Therefore,under the framework of one country and two systems,the author seizes the opportunity of the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and takes the connection of the marriage legal rules of the three jurisdictions as the research object,providing suggestions for solving the conflict of international private law in China and unifying the rules of law application.In the past,when experts and scholars discussed the conflicts of laws in China,they were planning solutions and ways to eliminate conflicts from the perspective of the mainland,Hong Kong and Macau.The author of this article takes a unique approach,limiting the system and path of legal rules’ connection to the scope of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.There are two reasons: First,during the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,the economic exchanges between the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong and Macau are deepening,intermarriage happens more frequently than other regions,so that the conflict of laws in different jurisdictions appear more obviously and the need for the connection of legal rules is more urgent;second,the practice of rule connection in the nine cities of the Pearl River Delta,Hong Kong and Macao could be a good sample,since signing judicial agreements to resolve the application of inter-regional marriage laws and then extending it to other regions is more efficient,lower in judicial cost and saving legislative resources than unifying national marriage substantive law or inter-regional conflict norm law directly.This paper firstly outlines the historical background of the conflict of marriage laws in China three jurisdictions,and introduces the evolution of marriage laws in the Mainland,Hong Kong and Macau respectively.China’s marriage legislation has experienced three periods,including the beginning in the 1950 s,the stagnation from the 1960 s to the 1970 s,and the development since 1978.Early marriage legislation was separated from traditional civil law and became an independent legal department.After two revisions,it finally returned to the civil law department and became the fifth chapter of the “Civil Code”,which was once again bound by the rules of civil law.In October 1971,Hong Kong promulgated the first official marriage law called "Marriage Ordinance",which ended the chaotic situation of following the laws of the Qing Dynasty and the implementation of British laws,and abolished the unreasonable marriage rules such as male superiority and polygamy.Influenced by British Marriage Law,Hong Kong established a modern marriage system through promulgating special rules on marriage successively.The original legal source of the Macau Marriage Law was the Portuguese Civil Code.The localized Macau Civil Code succeeded the Portuguese Civil Code.It not only absorbed local customs,especially the Chinese customs,but also absorbed other civil law countries legislative achievements,such as German,Canadian,France,Italy etc.Secondly,this paper conducts a comparative study on the legal rules of marriage,legal effect of marriage and divorce.For example,in terms of the marriage rules,the legal age for marriage in the mainland is 22 for men and 20 for women,while in Hong Kong and Macau it is 16.Also marriage registration is a necessary formal requirement in Mainland,HK and Macau,but a wedding ceremony must be held in HK and Macau additionally.In terms of the validity of marriage,the Mainland apples joint ownership as legal marital property rules while Hong Kong and Macau apply separate property rules.In terms of divorce rules,adultery is the ground for divorce stipulated by the laws of Hong Kong and Macau,especially the Macau Marriage Law implements a divorce damage compensation rules for violations of the duty of loyalty to marriage,but adultery is not a legal divorce reason in the Mainland.The differences in these marriage rules fully demonstrate that it is not advisable to use an unified Chinese marriage law to eliminate inter-regional marriage legal conflicts,because people living in different regions hold different attitudes and principles towards marriage and family regulations which should be respected in the process of marriage law rules connection.Marriage legal rules are formed under Mainland,Hong Kong and Macao’s social economy,living standards,and cultural backgrounds.Finally,drawing on the valuable experience of the integration of private law in the United States and the legal integration of the European Union,the author suggests that the optimization of connecting of marriage laws and rules in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is trying to unify the method of selecting conflicting norms from the perspective of judicial application in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area court so that the only applicable law could be determined on the condition of the same case and party,then promote the practice to other regions to eliminate China inter-regional marriage legal conflicts. |
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