What is Article 4 of China Marriage Law?

Article 4 of the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that husband and wife should be faithful to each other and respect each other; Family members should respect the old and love the young, help each other and maintain equal, harmonious and civilized marriage and family relations.

This article is a new article, which stipulates the moral norms in marriage and family.

This article stipulates the standards for establishing equal, harmonious and civilized marriage and family relations, the requirements for advocating marriage and family relations, and the principled provisions on the rights and obligations of all members in marriage and family relations.

Husband and wife are loyal to each other and respect each other, that is, husband and wife are loyal to love and maintain the specificity of love. Mutual loyalty mainly refers to the fact that husband and wife do not have extramarital sex, but keep each other chaste and single-minded in sexual life. The duty of loyalty in a broad sense also includes that one spouse shall not abandon the other maliciously, nor shall he sacrifice or harm the other's interests for the benefit of a third party. Mutual loyalty between husband and wife is the most essential requirement of monogamous marriage, and its essence lies in standardizing the relationship between men and women and establishing a marriage relationship based on love.

Family members should respect the old and love the young, help each other and maintain equal, harmonious and civilized marriage and family relations. Family members here should refer to relatives who live together through marriage and blood relationship, enjoy legal rights and assume legal obligations. Not all relatives constitute family members. Referring to other provisions of the Marriage Law, family members here should refer to husband and wife, grandparents, brothers and sisters, children and grandchildren.

Extended data:

The provisions of the Marriage Law on the loyalty of husband and wife are listed in Article 4 of Chapter 1 General Provisions, and "family members should respect the old and love the young, help each other, and maintain equal, harmonious and civilized marriage and family relations", instead of stipulating in Chapter 3 "Family relations" that its normative attributes are neither specific rights and obligations norms, nor prohibitive norms, but advocacy. As far as its normative status is concerned, it is different from articles 2 and 3. It is not the basic system and principle established by the marriage law, but only shows the value orientation of the marriage law.

Therefore, it is difficult to interpret the mutual loyalty between husband and wife as a legal obligation. Article 3 of the Interpretation of Marriage Law (1) stipulates that if a marriage party brings a lawsuit to the court only on the grounds of violating the duty of loyalty, the people's court will generally not accept it; If it has been accepted, it shall be ruled to dismiss the prosecution. In other words, you need to have specific factual reasons, such as: spouse living with others, bigamy, etc. Before you can file a divorce or other litigation request with the court.

China People's Congress Network-Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China (Revised)

Encyclopedia-Interpretation of Marriage Law I