Marriage and Divorce Laws of the World Part 53

2. If a man sells his wife to another the woman is _ipso facto_ divorced from both men.

3. If a man induces his wife to become a prost.i.tute, or accepts her earnings as such, the wife is ent.i.tled to a decree of absolute divorce.

We can find no other causes which ent.i.tle a woman to a divorce from her husband. His adultery, cruelty, abandonment, neglect or drunkenness furnishes no ground for a dissolution of the marriage.

For a husband divorce is very easy. The so-called "seven valid reasons"

enable any man so inclined to practically discard his wife when it pleases him. The seven "reasons" or causes are:

1. Talkativeness.

2. Wantonness.

3. Theft.

4. Barrenness.

5. Disobedience to parents of husband.

6. Jealousy.

7. Inveterate infirmity.

The last of the seven reasons permits a man to get rid of a wife who is incurably ill or infirm.

MUTUAL CONSENT.--If husband and wife mutually agree upon divorce the courts, by ancient custom, will ratify their agreement. Although the Chinese law does not consider the consent or non-consent of the parties as of any consequence in creating the status of marriage, it, by a peculiar process of logic, permits them to end the relations.h.i.+p whenever they mutually please so to do.

Perhaps one can easier understand the marriage and divorce laws of the Chinese Empire by remembering that all Chinese laws are supposed to follow the instincts of the people (_Shun po hsing chi ching_).

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.--The present laws and customs of China are but little changed from the time of the Tang Dynasty, which reigned nearly thirteen hundred years ago.

Then, as now, a poor man who finds himself unable to support his wife, may, if she has no parents to take her back, sell her to his richer neighbour.

The judicial machinery of the Chinese Empire is the elaboration of centuries of customs and precedents. In the first instance parties seeking legal redress apply by complaint to the lowest court having jurisdiction within the district of their domicile. If dissatisfied with the decision an appeal can be made first to the District Magistracy, then to the Prefecture, and after that to the Supreme Provincial Court. If the questions involved are sufficiently important a further appeal may be prosecuted before the Judiciary Board, which sits in Peking and is the highest judicial court in the Empire.

In theory a defeated suitor can appeal from the Judiciary Board to the fountain of law and justice, His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of China, but there are few cases, according to the record, which have gone so far.

We are of the opinion that Chinese law will never approach a scientific system until China recognizes the necessity and value of having professional advocates and jurists to point out the way to better things.