A Study On The Contract Legal System Of Qing Dynasty

Chinese ancient contract has a long history, which had a profound and lasting impact on China’s economy and society. In order to meet the need of regulating the civil legal relationship and contract practices, legal norms on regulating the contract formats and behaviors; adjusting the contract relationships; mediating contract disputes; administering and intervening in the contracts and so on, came into existence as the situation required, which in all constituted the traditional contract legal system. Actually, this contract legal system in different historical phases took on the inner characteristics of its’own age. Having gone through thousands of years’developments and changes, Chinese traditional contract legal system of Qing Dynasty had already been rather mature and perfect. In the Qing Dynasty’s legal system, there were corresponding legal norms on the regulation and control of contracts in different respects, such as in the national statute law, in the customary law and in the judicial disputes and so on. Meanwhile, these aspects are interrelated, mutual-complemented and mutual-beneficial, which formed a relatively systematic and complete contract regulation and control system. The thesis, on the basis of the Qing Dynasty’s contract principles and norms as well as the practices, depicts a realistic picture of the regulation on the contract by the law, unfolds the true appearance of the Qing Dynasty’s contract regulation and tries to draw the outline of the Qing Dynasty’s contract legal regulation system from the respects mentioned just above.Except the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis is consisted of five sections, i.e. the summary of the Chinese traditional contract legal system; the contract legal norms in Qing Dynasty’s Central statute law; the contract legal norms in Qing Dynasty’s local statute law; the presidency on the contract by Qing Dynasty’s customary law and the Solution mechanism of the Qing Dynasty’s contract disputes.The introduction mainly includes the review of relative researches; the significance of this topic; the scope of this research; the application of the materials and the basic method employed in this research and so on.The first chapter briefly looks back to the sources of Chinese ancient contract by emphasizing the changes of the contract formats, pictures the fundamental outlook of the Chinese traditional contract legal system by enlightening the abundant alterations of the legal norms and gives a bird’s view of Qing Dynasty’s contract legal system by centering on the development of the Qing Dynasty’s contract legal system.The second chapter emphases on the contract laws and regulations in the central statutes of Qing Dynasty, marshaling the laws and regulations related with contract in the central statutes, and it has made a detailed description of the regulations on the making of a contract, the limitations of the subject and object of a contract, the regulations of the performance of a contract and the management and intervene of the state by contract taxes. Based upon the above descriptions, the inherent features of the contract regulations of central statutes in Qing Dynasty are summarized.Contract laws and regulations in local decrees in Qing Dynasty are the topics of the third chapter, which looks back the history of ancient local legislation, describes the basic condition of local legislation in Qing Dynasty, and gives a brief introduction of the most unique local decrees—“Provincial Decrees”. Focused upon Provincial Decrees, this chapter introduces the improvement and standardization of the form of contract, adjustment of contract relationship, settlement of the problems in the performance of contracts and improvement of contract taxes in local decrees, and based upon which, generalizes the relationship between local decrees and central statues on the laws and regulations of contracts in Qing Dynasty.The fourth chapter is mainly about the customary laws and regulations in Qing Dynasty, generalizes the basic manifestations of the customary laws in Qing Dynasty. Centering on local custom, family rules and guild custom, and it investigates the influence of the customary laws upon contracts and the regulations in Qing Dynasty. On this basis, it probes into the relationship of the customary laws and statutes on contracts in Qing Dynasty, making the conclusion that the relationship between them is mutual-complementation, interactive, conflict and developing together.Focusing on the Solution of contract disputes in Qing Dynasty, the fifth chapter makes a survey on the principle of Mediation First in contract disputes, attitudes towards contracts as evidence, the executions of judicial judgment, and the features of a combination of emotion, reason and law in judgment. Thus, it discusses the value orientation of the Solution in contract disputes in Qing Dynasty.Based upon the main points of the whole article, the conclusion part of this paper has made summaries and generalizations of the central statutes, local decrees, customary laws and Dispute solution on the aspects of the laws, regulations, adjustment of contracts, and summed up the features of different regulations and their relationships. Thus, it reaches the conclusion that the contract laws in Qing Dynasty have relatively perfect regulatory system. At the same time, the paper has made a dialectic analysis and position, pointing out that there are historical limitations in the contract laws of Qing Dynasty which are originated from traditional contract laws. Learning from history, the paper briefly presents the significance of the contract laws in Qing Dynasty to current legal system development.