改正民法의 諸問題 = A Study of The Revised Korean Civil Law

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The National Assembly revised our Civil Law(Law No. 3051) on 17 December 1977 and it is put in forced on 1 January 1979. In this thesis, the authors briefly mentioned the amendment of the Civil Law and studied synthetically the contents which has adopted in the new revised Civil Law.
Originally, the amendment of the Civil Law was composed of the ten main items as the following:
1. the abolition of the head of a "house";
2. the realization of equality between the sexes in the decision of the scope of relatives;
3. the abolition of the prohibition provision of marriage between the parties whose surname and origin of which are common;
4. the adoption of the joint property as regards any property the title of which is uncertain whether it belongs to the husband or wife;
5. the distributive demand right of property of the divorced spouse;
6. the judge's ascertainment of "divorce by agreement";
7. the coexercise of parental right between father and mother;
8. the readjustment of legal relatives between stepmother and stepchild, the father's spouse and the child born out of wedlock;
9. the readjustment of the legal portions in succession;
10. the adoption of re'serve le'gale(Pflichtteil).
But the new revised Civil Law partly adopted several items among the ten main ones and other items in the amendment of the Civil Law. They are as the following:
1. the requirement of marriage consent only under adult age(Art. §808);
2. the adoption of the principle of "Marriage makes an adult"(Heirat macht mu‥ndig)(Art. §2 of 826);
3. the adoption of the joint property as regards the property the title of which is uncertain whether it belongs to the husband or wife (Art. §830);
4. the adoption of the ascertainment of judge in the case of "the divorce by agreement"(Art. §836);
5. the adoption of the coexercise of parental right between father and mother(Art. §909);
6. the readjustment of the legal portions in succession(Art. §1009);
7. the adoption of re'serve le'gale(Pflichtteil)(Arts. §§1112∼1118).
As we know the abolition of the head of a "house, " the scope of relatives and the prohibition clause of marriage in the amendment was the one of the most improtant issues. But they are regrettably not adopted in the new revised Civil Law. Family law reform is world-wide tendency in the western countries, e.g., England, U.S.A., Germany and France after 1960s. Probably they might give us some instructions to amend our Civil Law. About twenty years have passed away since our Civil Law was put in forced on 1 January 1960. For this reason, we will need the whole scale investigation about our civil law, especially in family law part. In so doing, we will have the modern family law in the near future.