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New Marriage Law in the People's Republic of China : Translations

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New Marriage Law in the People's Republic of China : Translations THE NfiW CARRIAGE LAW IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: TRANSLATIONS, DEVELOPMENT, AND M^EVALUATION by MAR3ARET hsi B. A., Tunghai University, I960 A MASTER'S REPORT submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF SCIENCE Department of Family and Child Development KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 1965 Approved by: Major Professor ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Sincere and deep appreciation is expressed by the writer to Professor Leone Kell, major advisor, of the Department of Family and Child Development, for her guidance and encouragement during the preparation of this report. Special gratitude is expressed to Dr. Marjorie Stith, Head of the Department of Family and Child Development, for her suggestions. ii Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS H Chapter I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. TRANSLATION OF "THE REVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE" 3 The Marriage Revolution Abolishing the Forced and Arranged Marriage Prohibiting Child Betrothal Forbidding the Bargaining Marriage Prohibiting Interference with Widow'? Remarriage Prohibiting Early Marriage Freedom of Divorce Carrying out Monogamy Equality of Rights of Husband and Wife Protecting Women's Legal Rights Protecting Children's Rights Advocating the Marriage Law Appendix Summary of Book 22 III. PROMOTION OF THc. NEW MARRIAGE LAW Some Other propaganda Materials Methods Used in Propaganda LAW IV. INFLUENCES AND DIFFICULTIES IN ADMINISTRATION OF THE NEW . 26 Influences of the New Law Difficulties in Administration of the New Law V. HISTORY OF THE FAMILY REVOLUTION IN CHINA 3k Rang Yu-wei's Reform Movement in l8°8 Sun Yat-sen's Republican Revolution in 1911 The New Culture Movement in 1917 The Law of Kinship Relations in 1930 Outline of the Law of Kinship Relations Influences of the Law of Kinship Relations Communists Policies The New Morality Teachings VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Wi APPENDIX ^5 LITERATURE CITED 52 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION changes in political, The People's Republic of China has introduced many over the mainland of economic and social structures since gaining control was one of the most China in 19h9. The Marriage Law promulgated May 1, 19$0, new Marriage Law, much striking "reforms." Accompanying the passage of the propaganda campaign for the new written material was published to reinforce the were especially written for Marriage Law. Many of these propaganda materials in order to encourage more the poorly educated factory workers and peasants marriage and divorce, and people to understand their new rights and duties in merits of the Law. This research to help them understand the content and the Chinese Communists in pro- paper was concerned with the propaganda used by the results of carrying out this Law. moting their so-called "new Law," and with some The purposes of this report were: the new and current Marriage To find the content of a propaganda book about Law in China; and promoting the new To investigate patterns and methods in popularizing Marriage Law; Law and to propaganda To find reactions of the people to the Marriage materials; family revolution in To find the origins and history of the marriage and China; To summarize the aim of the Communists' marriage revolution. The methods of this paper were: analysis of its Translation of the book, "The Revolution of Marriage"; content and language. Study of related library materials in both Chinese and English. CHAPTER II TRANSLATION OF "THE REVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE" were After the promulgation of the new Marriage Law, propaganda materials for the published to enforce this Law. Most of these materials were written mar- working class and peasants since they were dominated by the traditional remained riage system. Strong resistance to the new form of marriage still among this group of common people. the typical "The Revolution of Marriage," published in China, was one of educated. In this book, books concerning the new Marriage Law for the poorly grammar in Cantonese folk Niu Chih (1951) wrote twelve chapters with simple translation into English language. This typical propaganda book was chosen for Law. by the writer to show how the Communists promoted this Section I. The Marriage Revolution party, and President Mao led the revolution, overthrew the reactionary People's Government established New China in 19U9- On May 1, 1950, the Central eight chap- promulgated the new Marriage Law. This legislation, which contains details about marriage. ters and twenty-seven articles, clearly regulated all the and will never be From now on, all Chinese females will get legal protection confronted by any kind of pressure or persecution. traditional The basic spirit of the Marriage Law is to abolish the" old marriage. The old system of marriage and to erect a new rational system of marriage, bigamy systems of marriage, such as arranged marriage, bargaining with the remar- and concubinage, the superiority of man over woman, interfering 1 abolished and riage of widows, child betrothal and the like, are all to be system of marriage forbidden. At the same time, to carry out the new democratic rights of man and woman, is to bring about freedom of marriage, monogamy, equal protection for child and woman. make our We have never had such a law for thousands of years. It will young gener- people have a perfect marriage and a happy family, rear a healthy the Marriage ation, and establish a prosperous and strong new China. Therefore, law. But how many Law is an advanced, revolutionary, and a great democratic for the benefits and advantages does the marriage law have for the people and sections. society? We are going to illustrate it in detail in the following Section II. Abolishing the Forced and Arranged Marriage owned their In traditional Chinese society, children were supposed to be by against parents and they should absolutely obey their parents and never fight young women their parents' will. Therefore, the marriage of young men and They did not stuck to the parents' order and the matchmaker's recommendation. boy's or young have the right to plan their own marriage. Neither of the young each other, girl's parents ever considered whether or not the two could respect labor jointly to help and support each other, get along well with each other, Their produce for their country, or even whether they could love each other. Buddha parents just matched their birth dates from a fortune-teller, or from the other's family status and in the tempi., or at most they tried to ask about each made the two to see whether the two families could match or not. Then they *Child betrothal: Under the arranged custom, some parents make their sons younger than ten years become engaged to girls older than their sons. These like baby- girls live with their fiances' families and take care of their fiances girls come sitters until their fiances grow up and get married to them. These from poor families. Their parents can not support them and they are sent or sold to be the child daughters-in-law. that the two young young persons live together forever without considering forced and arranged persons had never met before. This is what we called the marriage. felt bitterness Few couples under such marriage were happy. Most of them 2 called Wang Lien. He just like a mute person tastes a kind of herb medicine woman who was could not express its bitter flavor. It was even worse for the They believed that tied by the traditional concept of morality for the female. he has passed by; a nice a good horse never eats the grass on the way which and four woman never marries twice. They also believed in "three obediences 3 and were virtues."- They had to be tolerant of whatever their husbands did unhappy for their whole lives. Law But now, the old society has been pulled down. The new Marriage each other specifies that a man and a woman may get married only if they love people and both of them agree to get married, and their parents or the other may be cannot force or arrange the marriage. Only in such a way, the females emancipated; the young man and young woman may be happy; and the family life may be perfect. Section III. Prohibiting Child Betrothal In the traditional society, there was a marriage system called child betrothal. Bringing back a little daughter-in-law, the boy's family might not 2 Wanq Lien: A kind of herb medicine noted for its bitterness. ^Three obediences and four virtues: Three obediences, a girl should follow, obey and depend on her father before she gets married; follow, obey and depend on her husband after she gets married; and follow, obey, and depend on her son after her husband dies. Four virtues a girl should pay attention to, her conduct, conversation, appearance, and needlework. only save the wedding expenses but also added to their labor power. The little child daughter-in-law had to work hard from morning till night, but she didn't have enough clothes to wear and enough food to eat. When whe was young, she had to endure lots of her parents '-in-law maltreatment. When she xjas older, she had to endure her husband's spanking and scolding. Such a kind of system was not only unreasonable but also cruel. Tnere was another system called "Tan Long Hsi."^ The boy's parents brought his fiancee home before he was born. Therefore, there was a peculiar situation; the wife was older than the husband. Usually, an eight- or nine-year-old boy married an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl. In such a marriage, they could not love each other. Therefore, there was much bitterness, conflict, quarreling, and hate till the end of their lives.
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