# The New Marriage Law of the PRC takes effect

Date: 1950

## The fact

On 1 May 1950 the Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China took effect: it prohibited arranged purchase-marriage, concubinage, and child betrothal, and stated free-choice marriage and a right to divorce. Mao’s Central People’s Government issued it as a core social law of the new state. Implementation was local and uneven. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

## Context

Republican codes had already moved some of this language; rural practice had not. The Women’s Federation ran propaganda. Cadres sometimes used the law to break landlord households during land reform, mixing a civil-rights text with class struggle. That mix is context, not a reason to deny the statute or to treat it as a killing order. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

## Evidence and sources

English reprints of the 1950 Marriage Law circulate as a dated statute. Britannica independently identifies the law as a founding social measure. Demographic outcomes are later series, not this instrument. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Official or archival record: Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China, 1950 English reprint (https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/marriage-law.htm; Marxists Internet Archive / PRC statute reprint).

## Significance

Improving minority/women’s-rights path with medium confidence because enforcement lagged. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. Do not treat a 1950 statute as 1966 Red Guard family struggle. Do not invent a divorce-rate series. Mixed effects of The New Marriage Law of the PRC takes effect are separate paths.

## What is established and what is not

Established: a national Marriage Law took effect on 1 May 1950 under Mao’s government. Not established: that all arranged marriages ended in 1950, or a unique national divorce time series in this catalog. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Shared responsibility is part of The New Marriage Law of the PRC takes effect. Naming Mao Zedong does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1950-05-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

The attached driver is [protection-of-minority-rights](/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Mao Zedong: https://factrail.ai/people/mao-zedong

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Marriage-Law
- https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/cpc/marriage-law.htm

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/cn-mao-marriage-law-1950