| "Traditional Chinese legal system" is a concept that emerged in the comparative study of law in modern Chinese history. Rites were the cardinal value, the fundamental rules and the core institution of traditional Chinese legal system. However, for a long period of time, law has been taken as the pillar of the traditional Chinese legal system while rites are put aside and ignored by scholars in their studies of Chinese legal history. Consequently, little systematic and concrete exploration has been made on rites and the status and the role of rites in traditional Chinese legal system is seriously underestimated. The exclusion of rites from studies of Chinese legal history has led to a series of misunderstandings of the traditional Chinese legal system, such as the negative evaluation of the integration of morals and law and the characterization of the Chinese legal genealogy by "dominance of criminal law" and "preference of criminal law to civil law". Actually law is only one of many aspects of traditional Chinese legal system and its status and role in this system was far less important than those of rites. Nevertheless, law in the traditional Chinese legal system did have some special attributes. That is, under the guidance of rites, it had undergone a process of evolution from legalist law to Confucian law. This process of evolution shows exactly the dominance of rites, rather than law, in traditional Chinese legal system. |
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