Bigamy Research

The newly-revised law on Chinese marriage was passed by the twenty-first meeting of NPC Standing Committe in 2001,and the Suppreme People's Court issued the new judicial interpretation on marriage law. The revised law on marriage introduced the system of void marriage and revocable marriage. Soon,the new judicial interpretation of Supreme People's Court issued the detailed statement about the applicant and declaratory government unit and procedure of void and revocable marriage .The introduction of system on void and revocable marriage can improve the law on marriage ,many scholars and positivists stated their ideas and came up with their opinion. Many articles about it have been issued in detail. But the following question is whether it can affect the determination of bigamy. In other words, after we introduced the system of void and revocable marriage, how can we determine the action of bigamy? How can we understand the marriage in the marriage law? Whether it only means the lawful marriage or includes the void marriage and revocable marriage? If it only includes the lawful marriage ,it is impossible for bigamy in logic,because bigamy must be void and revocable marriage is excluded from marriage for lawbreaking. If we understand the marriage in the bigamy broadly, on one hand, we can determine the bigamy, on the other hand, we can determine that the marriage is void from beginning and the parties don't possess the couple's rights and duties, which is the fault of law on marriage. So, we have to think over how wedeal with the problem. In addition, the revised law on marriage does not recognize the practical marriage which is called the cohabit relation. Many problems arised such as how to deal with the contraduction between concepts,and what effect can it have on the determination of bigamy? In addition,we may have several questions worthy of researth, such as, the divorce of the couple may be arise the problem of void and the parties marry again after they have divorced? Whether the subjective factor of the parties can affect the determination of the bigamy? What is relation between the bigamy in civil law and the bigamy in criminal law?The discovery and final settlement about these questions are the main motive aim of this article, which is dependent on the clariration of legal concepts, and on the investingation about the history of marriage or marriage law. The writer tries to find a way to solve the problem by investigating the history of marriage and come up with some suggestions which can make the concept more logical on the determination of the digamy.First, the writer finds the answer to the problem of marriage from the history of marriage. Through the investingation of history on marriage from primitive society to the current society, the writer finds that people have different attitudes and ideas about the marriage in the different historial phase, which can detimine the different ideas on the bigamy.Second, the writer compares and draws on the experience of the other countries ideas about the marriage. Through this kind of investingation, we can find that each country has common attitude about banning the bigamy, but there may be different results about how to determination of bigamy. Some countries such as France and Japan only state to ban bigamy simply, but they don't issue the criterion on how to determine the bigamy, which have many problems faced with our Chinese marriage law, that is whether it from bigamy when the marriage is void or revocable. In other countries , however, unlawful marriage is called unexit marriage. In other words, this kind of marriage is not recognized and doesn't from the bigamy.We can see that people have different opinions on how to determine bigamy, and there are different ideas on digamy in different historial periods. Why? The writer thinks that the key problem is people have a different opinion on the concept of marriage, which is a basis to define the bigamy. So, we must begin with the defination of marriage and understand the relation between bigamy and practical marriage, and void or revocable marriage.In sum, the writer thinks that we should regard the ethical as the basic concept of marriage about the choice of concept of marriage. Many social phenomena which conforms to the ethical of marriage can form marriage, which can be criterion for determination of bigamy. Depending on the ethical essence of marriage, the writer states the relation among bigamy with void, revocable marriage and cohabiting phenomena.Finally, the writer finds out the problems and comes up with his own suggestion.