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7 China L. Rev. 144 (1934-1935)
Adultery as Crime in China

handle is hein.journals/chinlrv7 and id is 160 raw text is: THE CHINA LAW REVIEW ADULTERY AS CRIME IN CHINA FRANCIS S. Liu In the Revised Criminal Code, which was promulgated on January 1, 1935, there is one innovation in the Chapter relating to the Offenses against the Marriage and Family which deserves our serious attention and study. Under the Criminal Code in force, a married woman who commits adultery with a man other than her husband is punishable with a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years. In the course of the recent revision of the Criminal Code by the Legislative Yuan at Nanking, the women organizations agitated with such vociferous persistence for the equality of sex that the law-making body after many stormy sessions finally adopted the change, namely, that a mar- ried person who commits adultery with a person other than his or her spouse shall be punishable with a term of imprison- ment not exceeding one year. With the introduction of the revised article, the citizenness of the Chinese Republic will enjoy absolute equality with her male compatriot, thus completing the metamorphosis of the traditional Chinese family, which has been based upon the male authority and the consequent female subjugation. Before passing judgment upon the legislative wisdom, it befits our purpose to give a cursory review of the fundamental principles, in which the centuries-old Chinese family is fossified, and the modern legislations of other countries. CHINA'S OLD FAMILY SYSTEM Apart from the striking similarities that exist between the Roman paterfamilias and the autocracy of the Chinese family, the sole aim and end of the Chinese institution was the procrea- tion of the issue. It is only necessary to recall the Confucian commandment: amongst three kinds of filial impiety, the most aggravated is without leaving an issue to the family. The primordial duty of the man culminates in the perpetuation of the family through the male lineage. As a logical consequence of the preceptory unwritten law, the old written law prescribed that a wife might be ousted from the family by virtue of her infecundity, because the most grievous offence a woman was capable of was her inability to bear a male child to the family. Under the domination of this pervading idea, it was incumbent upon the husband to keep concubines for the fulfillment of his principal duty to his ancestors. The institution of concubinage in China was based upon social morality. The concubine enter- ed the family as one of its members and owed to it her primary 144

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