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Marriage Law Amendments Reflect Democracy: Expert
A Chinese legal expert said Friday that democratic principles were seen in the process while China published the draft amendments to the Marriage Law for nationwide discussion early this year.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China 's top legislature, received more than 4,000 letters on the amendments, which was just adopted two weeks ago, said Hu Kangsheng, deputy director of the NPC's Legal Affairs Committee, this morning at a press conference.
Those letters mainly focused on such hot topics as "keeping concubines," domestic violence, the validity of marriage, and how to protect the legitimate rights and interests of juveniles, wives, and the elderly when the families they belong to break up.
The amendments have preserved most of China's traditional notions on marriage, become more applicable, and stressed the combination of the rule of law and the rule of morality concerning marital matters, according to the deputy director.
The Chinese public have been ardent observers and participants in the law revision drama. Statistics show that 91.6 percent of respondents to an official survey said that they are in favor of revisions to the Marriage Law.
Sociologists here believe that the active involvement of the public in making laws has been the result of the drastic social transformation of China, which is opening wider to the outside.
Hu elaborated that those marital problems concerning personal safety, property rights and normal social orders should resort to legal means, while those problems involving individual morality and living customs might rely on such methods as persuasion.
The amendments have stricter stipulations to crack down on " keeping concubines," but are not enough to curb the ever-spreading practice of adultery and other extramarital matters.
After repeated deliberation among legislators, the amendments were later approved by sticking to the principle of prohibiting bigamy and "keeping a second wife," but proposed moral, administrative, and persuasive solutions for other extramarital matters.
The amendments also have new stipulations that husband and wife shall be faithful to each other and help each other and that they must respect the old and love the young. Ethically, this is an advocacy, he said. But legally, it is a manifesto.
Official figures show that 8.4 million Chinese couples tied the knot in 2000, 10.8 percent down from 10 years ago, while 1.2 million broke up last year, up 51.25 percent.
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