Abstract：Family law is a crucial part of China’s legal system. Unfortunately, previous studies have failed to properly cope with the structural relationship between the individual, the family and the state. To understand the significance and trend of contemporary family law, as exemplified by the Civil Code: Marriage and Family, it is necessary to interpret family law within the historical context of state integration. This dynamic perspective, which is open to the reality, is the innovation point of this study. Under the perspective of state integration, this study purports to construe the transformation of family law from three innovative aspects: “the family as a mechanism of integration”, “the paradigm transformation of state integration in China” and “new family law under constitutional integration”.First, “the family as a mechanism of integration” focuses on the integration function of the family in dissolving the tension between the individual and the political community. From the early days of New China, the initial stages for reform and opening-up to the new era, the family has adapted to the ever-changing task of state integration through its different institutional roles.Then, “the paradigm transformation of state integration in China” is a political and social reality in interpreting the transformation of family law, which determines how the integration function of family and family law is performed. In the early days of New China, the realization of state integration was achieved primarily on political authority. The primary task of family law was to assist the integration of political authority into family life. It is apparent that the family turned into the basic unit for the transformation of individuals and the realization of a homogeneous state. At the initial stages of the reform and opening-up, the integration of the state was mainly driven by the socialist market economy system. The role of the family in family law was transformed into an “autonomous organization” characterized by self-service and self-development, which served to assist individuals in acclimatizing the great influence brought about by the separation of political power as soon as possible. In the meantime, the weakening of family ethics by economic rationality has revealed the dilemma of the nihility of value consensus. The integration of the State in the new era is based on the integration of the Constitution. Under the value guidance of the Constitution on family law, the role of the family as an enlightener of civic virtues is portrayed in the Civil Code: Marriage and Family.Finally, constitutional integration requires the Constitution to form an inherent fit with society, history and culture, to weigh and warrant that the Constitution is continuously renewed in its effectiveness and sustains the integration of the state with the value of the times. The inclusion of the Core Socialist Values in the constitution in 2018 signifies the establishment of the core values of the community in the new era and the generation of the long absent value target in China. In this context, family law should reflect the state’s leading role in individual morality and “materialize” the constitutional value consensus required by the times through the system, to enhance the value cohesion in the transition period. Article 1043 of the Civil Code: Marriage and Family specifies the construction of the family civilization. By confirming the moral obligations of spouses and family members, the Civil Code: Marriage and Family corresponds to the constitutional values. What’s more, the increase in the time cost of divorce and the clarification of the nature of the matrimonial debt inthe Civil Code: Marriage and Familyare all manifestations of the penetration of the Core Socialist Values into family life.In the future, we should further strengthen the procedural guarantees of democratic participation in the consensus on constitutional values. Then the coexistence of state integration and social development can be better achieved in a dialectical and holistic relationship among the individual, the family and the State.
范佳洋. 家庭法中的家庭角色变迁[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2022, 52(6): 146-160.
Fan Jiayang. Transformation of Family Role in Family Law: From the Perspective of State Integration. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2022, 52(6): 146-160.
2022, Vol. 52 
