JAPANESE CIVIL CODE 383 



unnecessary repetitions and made the body of the law succinct, the 

 new code containing only 1146 articles. 



The new code, besides having a book devoted to general provisions 

 common to all legal relations, has distinct places set apart for the laws 

 of family and succession. In the Code drafted by Professor Bois- 

 sonade the law of family was included in book i, relating to " Persons," 

 and the law of succession formed a part of book in, relating to the 

 "Means of Acquiring Property." Now this arrangement formed one 

 of the strong reasons for postponing the operation of the first code 

 and reconstructing it on an entirely new basis. 



Before the Restoration it was the family, and not the individual, 

 that formed the unit of society. The family was then a corporation; 

 and as a general rule, only the house-head could hold public office or 

 private property, or transact business, all other members of the family 

 being dependent upon him. But since the Restoration, this state of 

 things has changed, and the disintegration of the family is rapidly 

 going on. The family has now ceased to be a corporation in the eyes 

 of law, and the dependent members of the family or the house- 

 members can hold office or property or transact business equally with 

 its head. Japanese society is now passing from the stage of family-unit 

 to the stage of individual-unit. But still the family occupies an import- 

 ant place in the social life of the people, and there are many rules 

 which are peculiar to their family relations, and which ought, on that 

 account, to be grouped together and separated from the rules relating 

 to persons regarded simply as individuals. The " Pandekten-System " 

 is peculiarly suited to this transient state of society, for it provides 

 for the rules relating to persons in their capacity as individuals or 

 members of a society in the general part, and sets apart a distinct 

 place for those rules which relate to persons in their capacity as mem- 

 bers of a family. In civilized societies, the rules which regard men as 

 individuals belong to general law, while those which regard men in 

 their family relations belong to particular law. But in less civilized 

 communities the case is just the reverse; the family law may be said 

 to form the general law, the law relating to persons in their individual 

 capacity falling under the category of particular law. Japan is now in 

 a transition stage; so that the placing of the rules relating to indi- 

 viduals in the general part and the rules relating to family relations 

 in the particular part of the Code is not only logically correct, but is 

 especially suited to the present state of the law of Japan. 



As to the place of the succession law in the Code, strong objection 

 was raised against the arrangement of Professor Boissonade which 

 put it in book in, under the head of " Means of Acquiring Property." 

 In Japan, as I shall show presently, succession cannot, at least as 

 regards the most usual kind of it. be regarded as a mode of acquiring 

 property. 



