”Expansion and restriction: turning points toward the modernization of family law in Japan and China, 1868–1930.”
Xiao Weilin
American Journal of Comparative Law
Published online: August 2024

Abstract: Until their encounter with the Western powers in the 19th century, Chinese and Japanese societies were deeply embedded in traditional family systems that formed the basis of their social structures. However, once legal modernization began, these countries adopted almost opposite strategies to reform their customary family laws. Primarily, Japanese legal reformers under the Meiji government strengthened the authority of the family and emphasized its political role. In stark contrast, Chinese legal reformers in the late Qing and Republic eras curtailed the authority of the family and diminished its importance. Although the modernization of family law in Japan and China have each been the subject of academic research, the differences between the two countries and the reasons behind their different approaches have not been adequately investigated. This provision aims to fill this gap.

Through a comparative analysis of the legislative history of the two countries, this paper shows that the turning point in the two countries is due to differences in the historical functions of the family system and differences in the contemporary political background that legal reformers encountered during the period of legal modernization. Then he claims. In Japan, the family system has historically been politically tied to the state, and the Meiji government strengthened its control over this system through modern codification efforts. As a result, Meiji political elites found it advantageous to integrate the population into the new absolutist imperial system, and used family political loyalty to achieve this. In contrast, the Chinese family system was politically separated from the state by the late imperial period. In the aftermath of the Republican Revolution, the Kuomintang government overcame a situation of rival political forces that significantly challenged its authority. Political elites aimed to dismantle customary family law in order to weaken traditional family institutions, seeing them as a threat to government centralization and social cohesion. They also sought to project a modern, liberal image in order to gain broader political support.