清代民间契约中的法律——民事习惯法视角下的理论构建
2006-04-01 18:58:16 作者：李力 来源：中国法律文化网 浏览次数：0 网友评论 0 条
中 文 摘 要
许多中外国学者都认为古代中国法律制度的特征是刑事法发达并且以刑事法代替民事法，即所谓“刑民不分，以刑代民”。然而中国古代社会又是一个地域辽阔、人口众多，经济曾经相当发达，而且社会经济关系极其复杂的社会，在这样一个有着丰富多彩的民事关系的社会中，如果说没有或少有民事行为规范的话，那么整个社会又是怎么能够做到协调而有序地运转的呢？近年来我国法学界显然注意到了存在于历史表象之中的这种矛盾，他们相信事实的逻辑胜过形式的逻辑，因而开始转向从形式的法律——古代官方成文法之外的社会生活中去寻找事实的法律，他们相信中国古代社会在以“诸法合体、民刑不分”为编篡体例的成文法体系之外还存在着一个“诸法并存、民刑有分”的法律体系，因而开始了对中国古代民事法律制度的研究。
然而在中国古代法的研究领域中，历史学研究的传统方法占据了主导的地位。我们大体上可以把这种研究方法描述为这样一个过程：首先是以现代民法的权利体系（尤其是以我国学者所熟悉的大陆法系的权利体系）作为先在的研究框架和参照系，以现代民法的概念体系（同样以大陆法系的概念体系为主）作为研究的基本工具，然后主要是从中国古代浩如烟海的成文法（例如清代的律、例）中寻找相应的规范制度，使用现代民法的概念作为工具对其加以阐释，并将其在预先设定的权利体系中加以定位。显然，这种研究方法限制了中国古代民法研究的发展，并且使研究结果失去了价值意义。更进一步看，研究方法的缺失不仅限制了中国古代民法研究在形式上的繁荣，而且限制了对中国古代民法在实体上的切实把握。如果我们确信在中国古代社会中存在着具有实定性的、有效性的民事法律制度，并且确信它在数千年的历史时期中维系着社会民事活动的秩序，我们就不可能将其想象为是一个支离破碎的、不成熟的、不完善的制度体系。显然，不是中国古代民法出了问题，而是我们今天的研究方法出了问题。
因此，本文试图以清代民间契约为研究的时空切入点和对象切入点，试图尽可能地置身于清代民间契约的语境之中去理解文本制造者对于权利所作的表达，以及其用以表达的概念的确切含义。尽管深入的研究需要在清代的表达与西方的语境之间进行比较，但西方的概念体系和权利体系不是被成为一种先在的阅读工具和评价尺度，而仅仅被看作是表示我国清代民事权利体系和概念体系独立存在的参照物，以及对其作现代阐释时的语言转换物。
基于这种研究方法，笔者试图构建存在于清代民间社会中的民事习惯法的权利体系和概念体系，并且寻求这一体系内部的协调一致，以及其与官方成文法之间的协调。通过这一研究来较为确切地认识清代社会中广泛存在于民间的民事习惯和习惯法，并且从法律运作的整体构架来把握中国古代法律制度和法律秩序的实际状况，更好地把握我国古代法律制度发展的历史和规律，更好地把握中国古代法的传统，为进一步研究这种传统的现代转化提供坚实的基础。
清朝是中国历史上最后一个封建王朝，在其法律制度中官方成文法与民间习惯法并存，其成文法的主体继承了中华法系发展的历史传统，而在习惯法的层面上，也呈现出中国古代法律发展的充分延续的状态。作为一种“普遍性判断标准”，我们也可以在广义上将习惯称之为“法律渊源”，在这个意义上，习惯也构成习惯法，而民间契约则成为习惯法的重要表达方式。清代习惯法由成文习惯法和不成文习惯法所构成，从总体上看，成文习惯法的适用范围非常有限，而不成文习惯法却具有普遍适用的价值，清代许多不同地区的民间契约都具有共同的习惯表达便清楚地表明了这一点。清代不成文习惯法的内容已经远远超过家庭和宗族事务的范围，而涉及到民事、商事活动的各个领域，并且有着自己独特的运作机制，宗法社会和乡村自治为习惯法的运行提供了制度性基础。然而，大多数习惯法一方面以社会的主流意识形态作为其规范的基础，另一方面也借助官方的司法系统来维系自身的存在。官方的司法制度对宗族的或行会、商会的习惯法予以承认，并且通过正式的审判使其得到强化，从而表现出官方制定法体系与民间习惯法体系在多个层面上的融合。在这一制度框架下，中国古代民事法律制度经过历代的发展，至清时已经具备了自己独特的体系构架，并且已经形成了基本的民事权利概念体系。在清代的民间契约中，这一概念体系主要包括“业”、“卖”、“伙”、“保”等基本内容，以及与此相关的其他权利概念。
综观清代民间契约中所表达的私权体系和用以表达的概念体系，我们大致可以以业权为中心而对清代民法体系做这样的概括：在清代这样一个农业社会中，凭借有限的生产资料而获取谋生的基本手段成为社会经济生活中的主要问题，这种社会存在反映在民法中，便使业权这种能够带来收益的权利成为民事权利体系的核心内容。业成为权利的对象，并且通过买卖而在不同主体之间流动，在这个流动过程中，发展出了诸如“典”、“当”、“伙”、“押”等不同的业权形式，而以宗族社会为基础的“保”（中）人制度则为业权的享有和流动提供了具有强制力的保障，这种保障又因为官方制度法在一定阶段上的介入而得到强化。在这一权利体系框架下，民间社会发挥着充分的创造性，将对业权的利用发挥到了极致。
本文通过对一系列具有典型意义的民间契约的分析，较为深入地探讨了“业”、“卖”、“伙”、“保”等清代民事习惯法的基本概念的内涵，并通过将其与现代民法中的相近概念的比较，进一步把握清代民事习惯法的权利体系，并且探讨了清代民事习惯法所包含的文化学意义。
关键词： 习惯法 民间契约 清代法律制度
The Civil Legal System from Folk Contracts in Qing Dynasty
Li Li
ABSTRACT
In many Chinese and foreign scholar‘ opinion, the characteristics of the Chinese legal system is that criminal laws are well-developed and take the place of civil laws, which is also called that "Civil laws are combined with criminal laws and actually replaced hereby”. However, the ancient China is a country with the expansive territory, a large number of population and the considerable developed economy and is an ancient society with the complicated social and economic relations. In such a society with the rich and colorful civil relations, without or with a little regulations governing civil activity, how dose the whole society move forward in harmony and order? Recently, many law scholars have noticed this contradiction existed behind the historical surface a, and believe that the logic of facts goes beyond the logic of forms and therefore they began to convert from searching for the law in forms into searching for the law in facts from the social life outside the statutes. They begin their research on the ancient Chinese civil legal system based on their belief that in the ancient society there was a legal system of “coexistence of various laws and separation of civil and criminal laws” which still existed outside the written law system of “syncretism of various laws and combination of civil and criminal laws”.
However, the traditional method of historiography research has hold a dominant position in the field of ancient laws of China. In general we can put it into such a process: this method begin with setting the modern rights system in civil law (the rights system in the civil law system in particular) as a frame of reference and using the concept system in modern civil law as a research tool, and then depends mainly on finding the corresponding provisional institutions from the tremendous amount of ancient statutes (laws and codes in Qing Dynasty, for instance) and making the explanation hereof, and consequently making an orientation in the pre-established rights system. Of course, this academic method restrains the development of ancient civil law research and hereafter makes the research results become meaningless. Furthermore, the defect of research method not only limits the prosperity of research in the ancient civil law formally, but also affects our understanding hereof substantively. Supposed that we assure that there exists the civil legal system with certainty and effect in our ancient society, and assure that it is the said civil legal system that keeps the order of social civil activities during the thousands of years history, we couldn’t take it as a broken, immature or imperfect institutional system. Accordingly, it’s quite safe for us to conclude that it is not anything wrong with our ancient civil law but current research method.
Considering all above, taking the folk (non-government) contract of Qing Dynasty as a cut-in, I attempts to illustrate the expression of the term “right” made by the law-maker and the real meaning arising form the related concepts by placing myself in the environment of folk contracts in Qing Dynasty. Although a further research shall be done by the comparison between the expression used in Qing Dynasty and the language environment in Western countries, the western conception and right system are not regarded as a pre-existent reading facility or an evaluation measure, but regarded as a frame of reference which is taken to show the independent existence of the civil right system and conception system in Qing Dynasty and as a language transition term which is used in modern interpretation.
Based on the above-mentioned research method, I tries to build a right system and the conception system arising from the civil custom existed in the society of Qing Dynasty and meanwhile tries to find a mechanism by which the inner pars of the system will be concerted with each other and also assorted with the official statutes. This research will help us have a better understanding of the civil custom and civil custom laws broadly existed in the society of Qing Dynasty, the actual situation of the ancient Chinese legal system and legal order from the viewpoint of the whole framework of legal application, the history and the rule of development of our ancient legal system and the tradition of the ancient Chinese law, which provides a firm foundation for a further research on this modernization conversion from the tradition.
Qing Dynasty is the last feudalist dynasty in the history of China, in which the official statutes coexist with the folk custom laws in the legal system. The main part of the statutes inherits the historical tradition of the Chinese law system while the custom law suggests a continuous developing state of the ancient Chinese laws. As a kind of “general judging standard”, we call the custom as a “legal source” in a broad sense. In this sense, the custom laws are also concluded in the custom. The folk contract is an important form of custom laws. Collectively speaking, written custom laws are applied in a very limited scope while the non-written custom laws are applied in a broad range, including every field concerning civil and commercial activities. The custom laws of Qing Dynasty has its own operation mechanism which is based on the institutional foundation provided by the patriarchal clan system and the autonomy of villages. However, on one hand, most of the custom laws is institutionally based on the main ideology of the society and takes the official laws to maintain its own existence. On the other hand, the official laws accept the custom laws concerning the patriarchal clan system and the business association and make them strengthened through their application in the formal trail, which shows that the official statute system and the folk custom laws have been syncretized in many aspects. Under this institutional framework, the ancient Chinese legal system in Qing Dynasty had possessed its particular systematic frame through the development of the past dynasties and already formulated the fundamental conception system regarding civil rights. In term of the folk contract of Qing Dynasty, the conception system mainly includes some basic content concerning “ye”, “sale”, “partnership”, “guarantee” etc and other related concepts.
Making a comprehensive view to the private right system and the conception system arising from the folk contract in Qing Dynasty, we can safely draw a conclusion about the civil law system of Qing Dynasty: in such an agriculture society, making a living on the limited producing material is the main issue arising from the social and economic life at that time, which makes the “right of ye” become the core in civil right system. “Ye” can be transferring from one party to another party by sales, which produces different forms of the “right of ye” such as “pawn”, “pledge”, “partnership”, or “mortgage”. The mediator system based on the clan society provides a powerful safeguard for the holding and transferring of the “right of ye”, which is then strengthened by means of intervention of the official institutional laws to a certain extent. Under this framework of the right system, the folk society makes full use of the “right of ye” by exerting its creativity.
This dissertation makes an elementary discussion on the civil laws of Qing Dynasty in terms of its folk contracts, especially concentrating on the property right, and therefore the conclusion drawn from it needs a further and deeper test and validation a lot of work shall be done, for example, research on those issues except for the property right, comparative research between the ancient Chinese civil law thoughts and civil law system, the process of making civil law system and those in western countries, the thoughts of ancient Chinese civil law , the modern sense of civil law system and its influence on modern laws, and inheriting ancient Chinese laws etc. I’m completely aware that it is a great research framework, which is beyond my reach. However, from the moment I chose it as my doctorate dissertation, I have made my determination to devote all my heat and soul on it. I am quite sure of it.
Key borad: custom laws ; folk contracts ; the legal system in Qing Dynasty
许多中外国学者都认为古代中国法律制度的特征是刑事法发达并且以刑事法代替民事法，即所谓“刑民不分，以刑代民”。然而中国古代社会又是一个地域辽阔、人口众多，经济曾经相当发达，而且社会经济关系极其复杂的社会，在这样一个有着丰富多彩的民事关系的社会中，如果说没有或少有民事行为规范的话，那么整个社会又是怎么能够做到协调而有序地运转的呢？近年来我国法学界显然注意到了存在于历史表象之中的这种矛盾，他们相信事实的逻辑胜过形式的逻辑，因而开始转向从形式的法律——古代官方成文法之外的社会生活中去寻找事实的法律，他们相信中国古代社会在以“诸法合体、民刑不分”为编篡体例的成文法体系之外还存在着一个“诸法并存、民刑有分”的法律体系，因而开始了对中国古代民事法律制度的研究。
然而在中国古代法的研究领域中，历史学研究的传统方法占据了主导的地位。我们大体上可以把这种研究方法描述为这样一个过程：首先是以现代民法的权利体系（尤其是以我国学者所熟悉的大陆法系的权利体系）作为先在的研究框架和参照系，以现代民法的概念体系（同样以大陆法系的概念体系为主）作为研究的基本工具，然后主要是从中国古代浩如烟海的成文法（例如清代的律、例）中寻找相应的规范制度，使用现代民法的概念作为工具对其加以阐释，并将其在预先设定的权利体系中加以定位。显然，这种研究方法限制了中国古代民法研究的发展，并且使研究结果失去了价值意义。更进一步看，研究方法的缺失不仅限制了中国古代民法研究在形式上的繁荣，而且限制了对中国古代民法在实体上的切实把握。如果我们确信在中国古代社会中存在着具有实定性的、有效性的民事法律制度，并且确信它在数千年的历史时期中维系着社会民事活动的秩序，我们就不可能将其想象为是一个支离破碎的、不成熟的、不完善的制度体系。显然，不是中国古代民法出了问题，而是我们今天的研究方法出了问题。
因此，本文试图以清代民间契约为研究的时空切入点和对象切入点，试图尽可能地置身于清代民间契约的语境之中去理解文本制造者对于权利所作的表达，以及其用以表达的概念的确切含义。尽管深入的研究需要在清代的表达与西方的语境之间进行比较，但西方的概念体系和权利体系不是被成为一种先在的阅读工具和评价尺度，而仅仅被看作是表示我国清代民事权利体系和概念体系独立存在的参照物，以及对其作现代阐释时的语言转换物。
基于这种研究方法，笔者试图构建存在于清代民间社会中的民事习惯法的权利体系和概念体系，并且寻求这一体系内部的协调一致，以及其与官方成文法之间的协调。通过这一研究来较为确切地认识清代社会中广泛存在于民间的民事习惯和习惯法，并且从法律运作的整体构架来把握中国古代法律制度和法律秩序的实际状况，更好地把握我国古代法律制度发展的历史和规律，更好地把握中国古代法的传统，为进一步研究这种传统的现代转化提供坚实的基础。
清朝是中国历史上最后一个封建王朝，在其法律制度中官方成文法与民间习惯法并存，其成文法的主体继承了中华法系发展的历史传统，而在习惯法的层面上，也呈现出中国古代法律发展的充分延续的状态。作为一种“普遍性判断标准”，我们也可以在广义上将习惯称之为“法律渊源”，在这个意义上，习惯也构成习惯法，而民间契约则成为习惯法的重要表达方式。清代习惯法由成文习惯法和不成文习惯法所构成，从总体上看，成文习惯法的适用范围非常有限，而不成文习惯法却具有普遍适用的价值，清代许多不同地区的民间契约都具有共同的习惯表达便清楚地表明了这一点。清代不成文习惯法的内容已经远远超过家庭和宗族事务的范围，而涉及到民事、商事活动的各个领域，并且有着自己独特的运作机制，宗法社会和乡村自治为习惯法的运行提供了制度性基础。然而，大多数习惯法一方面以社会的主流意识形态作为其规范的基础，另一方面也借助官方的司法系统来维系自身的存在。官方的司法制度对宗族的或行会、商会的习惯法予以承认，并且通过正式的审判使其得到强化，从而表现出官方制定法体系与民间习惯法体系在多个层面上的融合。在这一制度框架下，中国古代民事法律制度经过历代的发展，至清时已经具备了自己独特的体系构架，并且已经形成了基本的民事权利概念体系。在清代的民间契约中，这一概念体系主要包括“业”、“卖”、“伙”、“保”等基本内容，以及与此相关的其他权利概念。
综观清代民间契约中所表达的私权体系和用以表达的概念体系，我们大致可以以业权为中心而对清代民法体系做这样的概括：在清代这样一个农业社会中，凭借有限的生产资料而获取谋生的基本手段成为社会经济生活中的主要问题，这种社会存在反映在民法中，便使业权这种能够带来收益的权利成为民事权利体系的核心内容。业成为权利的对象，并且通过买卖而在不同主体之间流动，在这个流动过程中，发展出了诸如“典”、“当”、“伙”、“押”等不同的业权形式，而以宗族社会为基础的“保”（中）人制度则为业权的享有和流动提供了具有强制力的保障，这种保障又因为官方制度法在一定阶段上的介入而得到强化。在这一权利体系框架下，民间社会发挥着充分的创造性，将对业权的利用发挥到了极致。
本文通过对一系列具有典型意义的民间契约的分析，较为深入地探讨了“业”、“卖”、“伙”、“保”等清代民事习惯法的基本概念的内涵，并通过将其与现代民法中的相近概念的比较，进一步把握清代民事习惯法的权利体系，并且探讨了清代民事习惯法所包含的文化学意义。
关键词： 习惯法 民间契约 清代法律制度
The Civil Legal System from Folk Contracts in Qing Dynasty
Li Li
ABSTRACT
In many Chinese and foreign scholar‘ opinion, the characteristics of the Chinese legal system is that criminal laws are well-developed and take the place of civil laws, which is also called that "Civil laws are combined with criminal laws and actually replaced hereby”. However, the ancient China is a country with the expansive territory, a large number of population and the considerable developed economy and is an ancient society with the complicated social and economic relations. In such a society with the rich and colorful civil relations, without or with a little regulations governing civil activity, how dose the whole society move forward in harmony and order? Recently, many law scholars have noticed this contradiction existed behind the historical surface a, and believe that the logic of facts goes beyond the logic of forms and therefore they began to convert from searching for the law in forms into searching for the law in facts from the social life outside the statutes. They begin their research on the ancient Chinese civil legal system based on their belief that in the ancient society there was a legal system of “coexistence of various laws and separation of civil and criminal laws” which still existed outside the written law system of “syncretism of various laws and combination of civil and criminal laws”.
However, the traditional method of historiography research has hold a dominant position in the field of ancient laws of China. In general we can put it into such a process: this method begin with setting the modern rights system in civil law (the rights system in the civil law system in particular) as a frame of reference and using the concept system in modern civil law as a research tool, and then depends mainly on finding the corresponding provisional institutions from the tremendous amount of ancient statutes (laws and codes in Qing Dynasty, for instance) and making the explanation hereof, and consequently making an orientation in the pre-established rights system. Of course, this academic method restrains the development of ancient civil law research and hereafter makes the research results become meaningless. Furthermore, the defect of research method not only limits the prosperity of research in the ancient civil law formally, but also affects our understanding hereof substantively. Supposed that we assure that there exists the civil legal system with certainty and effect in our ancient society, and assure that it is the said civil legal system that keeps the order of social civil activities during the thousands of years history, we couldn’t take it as a broken, immature or imperfect institutional system. Accordingly, it’s quite safe for us to conclude that it is not anything wrong with our ancient civil law but current research method.
Considering all above, taking the folk (non-government) contract of Qing Dynasty as a cut-in, I attempts to illustrate the expression of the term “right” made by the law-maker and the real meaning arising form the related concepts by placing myself in the environment of folk contracts in Qing Dynasty. Although a further research shall be done by the comparison between the expression used in Qing Dynasty and the language environment in Western countries, the western conception and right system are not regarded as a pre-existent reading facility or an evaluation measure, but regarded as a frame of reference which is taken to show the independent existence of the civil right system and conception system in Qing Dynasty and as a language transition term which is used in modern interpretation.
Based on the above-mentioned research method, I tries to build a right system and the conception system arising from the civil custom existed in the society of Qing Dynasty and meanwhile tries to find a mechanism by which the inner pars of the system will be concerted with each other and also assorted with the official statutes. This research will help us have a better understanding of the civil custom and civil custom laws broadly existed in the society of Qing Dynasty, the actual situation of the ancient Chinese legal system and legal order from the viewpoint of the whole framework of legal application, the history and the rule of development of our ancient legal system and the tradition of the ancient Chinese law, which provides a firm foundation for a further research on this modernization conversion from the tradition.
Qing Dynasty is the last feudalist dynasty in the history of China, in which the official statutes coexist with the folk custom laws in the legal system. The main part of the statutes inherits the historical tradition of the Chinese law system while the custom law suggests a continuous developing state of the ancient Chinese laws. As a kind of “general judging standard”, we call the custom as a “legal source” in a broad sense. In this sense, the custom laws are also concluded in the custom. The folk contract is an important form of custom laws. Collectively speaking, written custom laws are applied in a very limited scope while the non-written custom laws are applied in a broad range, including every field concerning civil and commercial activities. The custom laws of Qing Dynasty has its own operation mechanism which is based on the institutional foundation provided by the patriarchal clan system and the autonomy of villages. However, on one hand, most of the custom laws is institutionally based on the main ideology of the society and takes the official laws to maintain its own existence. On the other hand, the official laws accept the custom laws concerning the patriarchal clan system and the business association and make them strengthened through their application in the formal trail, which shows that the official statute system and the folk custom laws have been syncretized in many aspects. Under this institutional framework, the ancient Chinese legal system in Qing Dynasty had possessed its particular systematic frame through the development of the past dynasties and already formulated the fundamental conception system regarding civil rights. In term of the folk contract of Qing Dynasty, the conception system mainly includes some basic content concerning “ye”, “sale”, “partnership”, “guarantee” etc and other related concepts.
Making a comprehensive view to the private right system and the conception system arising from the folk contract in Qing Dynasty, we can safely draw a conclusion about the civil law system of Qing Dynasty: in such an agriculture society, making a living on the limited producing material is the main issue arising from the social and economic life at that time, which makes the “right of ye” become the core in civil right system. “Ye” can be transferring from one party to another party by sales, which produces different forms of the “right of ye” such as “pawn”, “pledge”, “partnership”, or “mortgage”. The mediator system based on the clan society provides a powerful safeguard for the holding and transferring of the “right of ye”, which is then strengthened by means of intervention of the official institutional laws to a certain extent. Under this framework of the right system, the folk society makes full use of the “right of ye” by exerting its creativity.
This dissertation makes an elementary discussion on the civil laws of Qing Dynasty in terms of its folk contracts, especially concentrating on the property right, and therefore the conclusion drawn from it needs a further and deeper test and validation a lot of work shall be done, for example, research on those issues except for the property right, comparative research between the ancient Chinese civil law thoughts and civil law system, the process of making civil law system and those in western countries, the thoughts of ancient Chinese civil law , the modern sense of civil law system and its influence on modern laws, and inheriting ancient Chinese laws etc. I’m completely aware that it is a great research framework, which is beyond my reach. However, from the moment I chose it as my doctorate dissertation, I have made my determination to devote all my heat and soul on it. I am quite sure of it.
Key borad: custom laws ; folk contracts ; the legal system in Qing Dynasty
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