The Study On Compensation System In Song Dynasty

Compensation, as an important part of social law, functions as recondition in social disputes. In Song Dynasty when the ancient commodity economy reached a high level, people's ethics and value of money changed greatly and the disputes increased in their daily life. In such situation, compensation played an important role in resolving the disputes. Compensation, as a part of the social law having been in existence since the West Zhou Dynasty and forming a complete social system in Song Dynasty, was made up of causes, categories, realization, and the exemption of responsibility. As an outcome of the failed contract in Song Dynasty, compensation could be divided into breach compensation and precontract compensation. Another factor that led to compensation was torts of property and right of the person. The doers of the torts could be persons or animals such as horses, oxen, sheep, dogs, etc. The owner of the domesticated animals should compensate for the torts. The channels of compensation realization in Song Dynasty were litigation procedure, private reconciliation, and compensated by other related people. In the penalty centered Song Dynasty society where government punishments were common practice, the ways of compensation realization were characterized by penalty for the civil responsibilities. The patterns of compensation realization included pure compensation, penalty, and the combination of compensation and penalty. The combination of the channels and patterns of compensation realization made up for infringer the greatest extent. The exemption is free the damager from his compensation responsibility. In Song Dynasty, there were three reasons for the exemption of compensation: law regulation, the debtor's abdication of right, and the emperor's pardon.