The Construction of Harmonious Society for the Ethnic Regions from the Perspective of Law Diversity – take the marital customary law of Naxi Na People as an example

ZhaoFei,

the Lijiang Teacher’s Institute, Lijiang 674100, Yunnan, China

This paper analyses the inner values of “the marital customary law” and “the maternal family” for the Naxi Mosuo People from the viewpoint of the law diversity theory and the informal institutional theory. The behavior of marriage is the essential content of the marital customary law. In the paper, the author analyses the family structure of the maternal family and the patrilineal family, the relations among consanguinity, bringing up children, heirdom, property allocation and family members.

The author suggests that we should deal with the relation between the constitution and the marital customary law properly. The methods of protecting Mosuo’s customs and culture are to exert the ethnic customary law and strengthen the supervision of legislation, justice and law. The Mosuo customary law has a set of unique norm and system for marriage, bringing up children, child planning, property allocation and partition. There is no father-in-law, son-in-law and etc in the maternal family. It is helpful to eliminate family contradiction and promote harmony of families and communities. In fact, the constitution can not be adopted there. According to the international and domestic law, inhabitant has the right to carry out and prosper their cultural tradition and customs. Autonomous regions have rights to adjust regulations and laws according to the condition there. The focus of the paper is the possibility of transforming the customs of the marital family into the law.

The law diversity theory and the informal institutional theory have many advantages. The theories provide guarantee for the development of ethnic groups. It is advantageous to realize the interactivity between the national law and the ethnic customary law. The theories allow the ethnic groups to settle affairs in their own ways on the basis of not hindering the national benefits. Legislators should adjust the ethnic customary law with the national law. There are five parts in the paper. The first part is the values of Mosuo marriage custom; the second part is the content of Mosuo’s marital customary law; the third part is the collision between the national law and the marital customary law; the fourth part is the adjustment between two laws; the last part is the practical significance of the marital customary law in constructing harmonious society.

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