中国共产党领导下婚姻家庭制度的回顾与展望

中国共产党建党至今已一百周年,在党的领导下,中国在经济、文化、法制等各个方面都发生了翻天覆地的变化。而作为关系着每个人切身利益的婚姻家庭制度也在朝着体系化、制度化、科学化的方向不断发展。从《中华苏维埃共和国婚姻法》到《民法典》婚姻家庭编,不同时期的婚姻立法不仅仅回应了时代要求,也向我们展示了我国婚姻法在立法理念和制度建构上的极大提升。     

婚姻自主权检讨

婚姻自主权并非自古有之,它是随着社会文明的发展、人性的解放和人格的独立逐步在世界范围内确立的。我国由于封建社会的历史比较长,婚姻自主权产生较之西方国家为晚。从对我国婚姻自主权发展史的考察中,可以看出婚姻自主权的主要内容是结婚自主权,进而本文证明了婚姻自主权的性质是特别人格权。这为完善婚姻自主权制度的民法保护奠定了基础。     

LGBT Family Lawyers and Same-Sex Marriage Recognition: How Legal Change Shapes Professional Identity and Practice

ABSTRACT

Lawyers who practice family law for LGBT clients are key players in the tenuous and evolving legal environment surrounding same-sex marriage recognition. Building on prior research on factors shaping the professional identities of lawyers generally, and activist lawyers specifically, I examine how practice within a rapidly changing, patchwork legal environment shapes professional identity for this group of lawyers. I draw on interviews with 21 LGBT family lawyers to analyze how the unique features of LGBT family law shape their professional identities and practice, as well as their predictions about the development of the practice in a post-Obergefell world. Findings reveal that the professional identities and practice of LGBT family lawyers are shaped by uncertainty, characteristics of activist lawyering, community membership, and community service. Individual motivations and institutional forces work to generate a professional identity that is resilient and dynamic, characterized by skepticism and distrust coupled with flexibility and creativity. These features are likely to play a role in the evolution of the LGBT family lawyer professional identity post-marriage equality.     

Women's Marriage Behavior Following a Premarital Birth in Sub‐Saharan Africa

This study examines the relationship between premarital childbearing and the timing of women's entry into their first marriage in sub‐Saharan Africa. The study shows that African women who have a premarital birth generally experience later transitions to marriage than do their childless peers. Although the birth of a child precipitates a quicker transition to marriage initially, unmarried mothers, on average, marry at older ages than their childless peers and remain single for between 2 and 14 years. Evidence from a subsample of countries confirms that the time between having a child and first marriage has lengthened slightly in some countries; however, this reflects mainly the overall trend toward later marriage, rather than a further bifurcation of the marital trajectories of mothers versus childless women. The study raises policy concerns about the welfare of Africa's single mothers and their children.     

Family Diversity and Child Health: Where Do Same‐Sex Couple Families Fit?

Increasing family diversity during the past half century has focused national attention on how children are faring in nontraditional family structures. Much of the limited evidence on children in same‐sex couple families suffers from several shortcomings, including a lack of representative data. We use the National Health Interview Survey (2004–2012) and the National Survey of Children's Health (2011–2012) to identify children in different‐sex married and cohabiting families, never and previously married single‐parent families, and same‐sex couple families. Considering important characteristics such as the child's race or ethnicity and adoption status, household socioeconomic standing, family stability, and parent health, we examine the relationship between family type and parent‐rated overall child health. The results suggest that poorer health among children in same‐sex couple as well as different‐sex cohabiting couple and single‐parent families appears to be largely the product of demographic and socioeconomic differences rather than exposure to nontraditional family forms.     

Divorce Chinese Style

This study investigated divorce during China's social and economic transformation period from 1970 to 2012. Specifically, the study examined the trend development of divorce and demonstrated how marriage formation type and individual socioeconomic characteristics were associated with the likelihood of divorce across time. Event‐history analysis was applied to longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (2010–2012 waves). The results showed a threefold increase in divorce from the pre‐1990s to the 1990s. Surprisingly, the trend shifted to a plateau toward the 2000s. When cohabitation was in its rapidly diffusing stage in the 1990s, individuals who cohabited prior to marriage had a substantially higher likelihood of divorce. As cohabitation became increasingly common in the 2000s, its effect on divorce weakened. The role of socioeconomic characteristics in divorce also varied across time. This study enriches the knowledge of family dynamics in contemporary Chinese society.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Dynamics in Couples: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective

The question of how educational assortative mating may transform couples' lives and within‐family gender inequality has gained increasing attention. Using 25 waves (1979–2012) of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and longitudinal multilevel dyad models, this study investigated how educational assortative mating shapes income dynamics in couples during the marital life course. Couples were grouped into three categories—educational hypergamy (wives less educated than their husbands), homogamy, and hypogamy (wives more educated than their husbands). Results show that change in husbands' income with marital duration is similar across couples, whereas change in wives' income varies by educational assortative mating, with wives in educational hypogamy exhibiting more positive change in income during the marital life course. The finding that husbands' long‐term economic advancement is less affected than that of wives by educational assortative mating underscores the gender‐asymmetric nature of spousal influence in heterosexual marriages.     

乡城流动背景下低收入地区农村男子的择偶困境——对甘肃省东部蔡村的调查

论文采用访谈和观察的方法,对甘肃省东部蔡村青年男子的择偶困境进行了研究。论文指出,青年农民工的流动使得流出地农村青年男子的择偶难度加大：彩礼飞涨,家庭负担加重;凑合婚增多,婚姻的不稳定性提高等等。贫困地区青年男子的择偶难问题成为中国在发展过程中尤其是城市发展过程中,从婚恋方面对于农村的又一次剥夺。应该把解决农民工的婚姻问题纳入关乎社会和谐与整个社会发展的意识形态中来。论文是对有关农民工婚姻问题研究的重要补充。