388 COMPARATIVE LAW 



different countries, and vary with the degree of civilization attained; 

 but broadly, they may be grouped into the following four systems: 



(1) System of Conjugal Unity, In those systems of law which 

 regard man and wife as one person, or in which the wife's per- 

 sonality is merged in that of the husband, whatever the bride 

 possesses at the time of marriage becomes the property of the 

 husband, as was the case in the English common law, or under 

 the doctrine of Manus in the early Roman law, or that of Mund 

 in the early Germanic law. 



(2) System of Dowry. Another system sets aside a part, at least, 

 of the bride's fortune as a common conjugal fund, the manage- 

 ment of which belongs to the husband, as was the case at one 

 period under Roman law, and under the Code Civil, and as is 

 now practiced in the south of France. 



(3) System of General Community of Conjugal Property. This 

 system exists under the Code Civil side by side with the dotal 

 system, principally in the northern part of France. 



(4) System of Separate Property. Under this system marriage 

 makes no change whatever in the property rights of the bride, 

 as is the case in England since the Married Woman's Property 

 Act of 1882, and in many states of the United States. 



Broadly speaking, the usual process in the evolution of the law of 

 conjugal property is in the order which I have stated above, the 

 system of unity corresponding to the lowest, and the system of 

 separate property to the highest, scale of civilization. But in this 

 respect the compilers of the new code have taken a decided step, 

 and leaped, at one bound, from the system of complete merger of urife's 

 property in that of the husband to the system of separate property. 

 According to the Code (arts. 793-807), persons who are about to 

 marry are allowed to make any contract with regard to their conjugal 

 property, which will be binding upon them and can be sef up against 

 a third person, if registered before the registration of the marriage. 

 If such contract be not made between them, their relations in regard 

 to property are governed by the general rules of conjugal property, 

 which, among others, lays down the fundamental rule that the 

 property belonging to a wife at the time of marriage or acquired after 

 marriage in her own name shall be her separate property. (Civil Code, 

 art. 807.) 



The reform in the law of divorce, which the new Civil Code 

 made, also marks a great advance as regards the legal position of 

 woman. During the second period, while the Japanese law belonged 

 to the Chinese family, the law of divorce was based upon the Chinese 

 doctrine of "the Seven Grounds of Divorce" (%Z{-), which are (1) 

 sterility, (2) lewdness, (3) disobedience to father-in-law, or mother-in- 

 law, (4) loquacity, (5) larceny, (6) jealousy, and (7) bad disease. 



