Author(s)

Yu CHEN

Corresponding Author

Yu CHEN

ABSTRACT

Sacrificial fields’ all three kinds of transformational practice in various parts of modern China about the same time were actually determined by its internal factors. The major theoretical controversies that occurred in the process of the transformation of sacrificial fields system could all be re-interpreted by those internal factors. And in the sense of how a traditional moral ideal could be realized under modern social conditions, the relationship between the tradition and modernity might also be re-understood with such internal factors.This article, which focused on the transformation of Chinese sacrificial fields system in early 1920s, would illustrate a highly contradictory truth: formally, the transformation of China’s legal system was subject to various framework of modern and western legal systems; but on its essence, this progress can also be seen as a process determined by its internal factors.

KEYWORDS

Sacrificial fields, Legal transformation, Chinese traditional customaries, Modern legal system