Excerpt from Chinese Family and Commercial Law It may here be remarked in regard to the Code generally, that since the inauguration of the Republic, the portions dealing with criminal procedure and the punishment of crimes has been abrogated and replaced by a new criminal Code. Other parts dealing with the Manchu organisation and the voluminous ceremonial, fiscal and trade regulations have long fallen into desuetude and will doubtless in no long time be swept away altogether. But while much of the Code may be regarded as merely of antiquarian interest, it is different with that part of it which deals with Family Law, inasmuch as its basis rests on immemorial custom and its rules have grown out of the primitive instincts and religion of the people. The foundation of Chinese society is the Family, and the religion is Ancestral Worship. Ancestral Worship is not a thing which the community as a whole can join in; it is private to each individual family, meaning by family all those who can trace through male descent to a common Ancestor, however numerous, and however remotely related. It is remarked by Sir Henry Maine (ancient Law, p. 126) that archaic law is full in all its provinces of the clearest indications that society in primi tive times was not what it is assumed to be at present, a collection of individuals. In fact and in view of the men who composed it, it was an aggregation of families. The contrast may be most forcibly expressed by saying that the unit of an ancient society was the family, of a modern society the individual. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.