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Traditional divorce process

In traditional Chinese society, there are three major ways to dissolve a marriage. The first one is no-fault divorce. According to the legal code of Tang Dynasty (618-907), a marriage may be dissolved due to personal incompatibility, provided that the husband writes a divorce note. The second way is through a state-mandated annulment of marriage. This applies to when one spouse commits a serious crime (variously defined, usually defined more broadly for the wife) against the other or his/her clan. Finally, the husband may unilaterally declare a divorce. To be legally recognized, however, it must be based on one of the following 7 reasons:     * The wife lacks filial piety towards her in-laws. This makes the in-laws capable of breaking a marriage against both partner’s will.     * She fails to bear a son.     * She is vulgar or lewd/adulterous.     * She is jealous. This includes objecting to her husband taking an additional wife or concubine.     * She has vile disease.     * She is gossipy.     * She commits theft. Obviously, these reasons can be stretched quite a bit to suit the husband and his family. However there are 3 clearly defined exceptions, under which the unilateral divorce is disallowed:     * She has no family to return to.     * She had observed a full 3-year mourning for an in-law.     * Her husband was poor when they married, and now is rich. The above law about unilateral divorce was in force from Tang Dynasty to its final abolition by the government of Republic of China in 1930. Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form Name Email Website Title Comment Write the displayed characters Add Comment Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved.

 

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