Draft of the Civil Code of China with Explanatory Notes - Book on Family Relations

Author: Liang, Head of the Research Group
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: Civil law is the law of civil society, and the social relationships it regulates can be broadly divided into two categories: economic life relationships and family life relationships. Correspondingly, civil law norms can also be broadly divided into two categories: property law and status law. Family law belongs to pure status law. Due to the influence of Soviet civil law legislation and theory, as well as the loss of the economic function of the family under the planned economy system in our country, civil law theory considered family life to be unrelated to economic life, thereby denying that family relationships fall under the scope of civil law regulation, denying that family law is a part of civil law, and renaming it "Marriage Law" or "Marriage and Family Law." Since the reform and opening-up, with the transition from a planned economy system to a market economy system and the development of a socialist market economy, the economic function of the family has become increasingly prominent, and the outdated theory that family life is unrelated to economic life was eventually abandoned. The "General Principles of Civil Law" formulated in 1986 appropriately included family relationships within the scope of civil law regulation, stipulating several basic rules for regulating family relationships, such as Article 103, which states that citizens enjoy the right to marry freely and prohibits the buying and selling of marriage, arranged marriages, and other interference with marital freedom; Article 104, which stipulates that marriage, family, the elderly, mothers, and children are protected by law; and Article 105, which stipulates that women enjoy equal civil rights as men. It also specially establishes a section on the guardianship system. Based on the above provisions of the General Principles of Civil Law and the current Marriage Law, this chapter is established.