An Empirical Legal Study on the Images of Succession in Taiwan:Women’s Rights of Inheritance in Legal Norms and Social Practice

• Main Authors: Ya-JingWang, 王雅靜
• Other Authors: Jing-Huey Shao
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84tf22

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 法律學系 === 106 === This thesis, an empirical legal study (ELS) on Taiwanese women’s succession rights, aims to portray Taiwan’s inheritance system as well as exploring its practice in the society through conducting a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews. The legislators of current Taiwanese Civil Code decided to obviate patriarchal ideology, allowing daughters to have the same share of estates as sons in order to promote gender equality. Nevertheless, the traditional societal custom still prevails in Taiwanese daily life, and indeed has an influence on human behaviors. It is found that daughters in Taiwan, “married daughters” especially, do not enjoy exactly their legal right of inheritance. Meanwhile, it is also discovered that there is a tendency which requires people should look after the elders of a family in exchange for the right to inheritance. Moreover, from the viewpoint of some Taiwanese, daughters are far different from sons. That is, in social practice, besides parents, “married daughters” also need to take care of their in-laws. But this condition usually not happens to “married sons.” With the perspective of combining filial responsibility with succession, “married daughters” might suffer a catch-22 situation that choosing to look after their parents or in-laws. It could eventually lead to a consequence of preventing women from inheriting property. Therefore, this thesis argues that the concept of “contribution portion” could be introduced into Taiwanese Civil Code. It might be able to help the legislators and reformers to reach the goal that Taiwanese women could enjoy their right to inheritance not only in statute, but also in practice.