A Story on the Legal Status of Vietnamese Women (1428-1945): Confucianism and Modernization of Law

• Main Authors: Thai Ngoc Phuong Minh, 蔡玉芳明
• Other Authors: Tay-sheng Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5mr6a9

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 法律學研究所 === 105 === The purpose of this study is to investigate the evolution of Vietnamese women’s legal status in family relations from ancient time until Vietnam came under French rule. The study is mainly divided into two parts. The first part uses Vietnamese “traditional” law and legal written documents to clarify the views of traditional Vietnamese legal culture on the legal status of Vietnamese women in marital and family relations. The second part explores the changes in the legal status of Vietnamese women under French colonial rule, that is, how the colonial government faces and transforms the traditional Vietnamese legal culture into modern Western-style law. Vietnam is commonly classified as a Southeast Asian country geographically. However, it culturally belongs to the “East Asian Cultural Sphere”, which share the ideas and values ​​of Confucianism and historically a common writing system. Therefore, the first part of this study mainly discusses the process of “Legal Confucianism” in Vietnam. The so-called “Legal Confucianism” means that Confucian ethics (especially “lễ”, “li” or “ritual”) became parts of the law. This part uses two traditional law codes (“Quốc Triều Hình Luật” in the 15th century and “Hoàng Việt Luật Lệ” in the 19th century) and a number of legal written documents to describe the legal status of Vietnamese women in traditional family relations, as well as the influence of Confucianism on traditional Vietnamese legal culture. The second part focuses on the “Legal Modernization” of the Vietnamese law during French colonial period. This part of study shows how French colonial government with its “civilizing mission” spread Western ideas, values, religions, as well as legal system to Vietnam – a country which was deeply rooted by the Confucian ideology. For the sake of domination, the French colonial government divided Vietnam into three regions (Bắc Kỳ, Trung Kỳ, Nam Kỳ), using direct and indirect ways to influence Vietnamese legal system, which later led to the phenomenon of “Legal Pluralism” – the existence of multiple legal systems within one country. In the process of introducing modern Western-style law intoto the colony, certain issues such as criminal law, tax system, commercial transactions, education,… were covered by colonial law, while other issues such as family and marriage were likely covered by traditional custom. Although the transformation of custom into law was carefully carried out by the colonial government, Vietnamese custom was unintentionally distorted by Western legal ideas. For example, traditional Vietnamese family, which was deeply influenced by Confucianism, required a wife to obey her husband in marital relations. Traditional Western family which influenced by Roman legal traditions, on the other hand, also had a similar idea which gave a husband the power over his wife, and asked the wife to serve and obey the husband. This idea is somewhat analogous in both legal cultures, still there are some differences. Although the French colonial government paid considerable attention to preserving the existing custom of the colony, it still inevitably used Western ideas and concepts to understand the local situation which made the new law go far away from the local social reality. As a result, Vietnamese women''s legal status in French colonial period was, at some level, subjected to more additional restrictions.