Difference between ancient Chinese law and ancient western law and the impact of the difference

Differences between ancient Chinese law and ancient Western law:

1, in the concept of law:

The traditional Chinese concept of law is mainly centered on the concept of "punishment", so it is often accustomed to equate the punishment with the law, thinking that the law is the criminal law.

The concept of Western law is centered on rights, which originated in the conflict between the commoners and the nobles, and is in a sense the result of social compromise, an important means of defining and protecting the rights of all social classes, and thus gaining the effect of uniform compliance.

2, the law (law as the basic unit of its rights and obligations):

Traditional Chinese law from the clan, tribal to clan, family and then to the national society of the group-based road.

Western law on the other hand follows the path from clan to individual and then through God and gods to the individual.

3, from the nature of the legal culture embodied:

The traditional Chinese legal culture is a public law culture, public law culture is essentially a criminal (criminal law or nationalized) legal system;

Western legal culture is traditionally a private law culture, private law culture is a civil (civil law or privatized) legal system.

4. Ethicalization and Religiousness

Traditional Chinese law was gradually controlled by Confucian ethics after the Western Han Dynasty, and the spirit and principles of Confucian ethics increasingly regulated the changes and development of the law, which eventually led to the complete ethicalization of Chinese law in the Sui and Tang dynasties, a situation that remained unchanged until the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Confucian ethics made traditional Chinese law a kind of moralized law, and law became a tool of morality, and morality became the soul of law.

Western legal culture has been influenced by Christianity since Rome, and in the Middle Ages, Christianity gradually took control of secular law. Although the modern bourgeois revolution separated church and state, and the law as a whole got rid of Christianity's bondage and control, Christianity's influence on Western law still exists today, and has penetrated y into the ideology and system of Western legal culture.

Expanded Information

There were many forms of law in ancient China, unlike modern law, which consists of only a few types of laws, statutes, and regulations. Ancient legal forms are summarized as follows: criminal, law, law, order, code, style, pattern, edict, enjoin, section, than, example. In a dynasty, there are often several forms of law used at the same time, forming the legal system of the dynasty.

The words "law", "law" and "punishment" in ancient Chinese are related to each other. Legend has it that Shang Yang changed the law, "changing the law into law", and first combined the words "law" and "law" into the word "law" to refer to a system of norms. The first person to combine the words "law" and "law" into the term "law" to refer to a system of norms was Guan Zhong in the Spring and Autumn Period. But neither "criminal law" nor "law" has the rich connotation of modern law.

Ancient Chinese law - Baidu Encyclopedia