隨著西方法制的繼受，傳統中國法的男尊女卑典範面臨衝擊與調整。在民初作為最高司法機關，又同時在某種程度上肩負立法任務的大理院，其針對夫妻財產制問題所著之一系列判例，就成為觀察當時夫妻關係法制變化的重要媒介。本文以妻財產權作為觀察主軸，分析大理院在相關判例中所呈現之夫妻財產關係，以及妻對於特定財產之權利。本文發現，大理院對妻之財產權雖然有相當程度的界定以及擴充，但整體而言其立場仍顯得保守。這一方面有時代的侷限，另一方面則是囿於依法審判的職責所在，而影響對於改善妻之地位所能發揮的作用。

While the Western legal systems were receipted in the early 20th Century, the paradigm of male chauvinism of traditional Chinese law was challenged by the new legal circumstance and had to adjust. Ta-Li-Yuan (大理院), the supreme court in the early Republic of China, played the role of the law maker in some degree as well as took its legal responsibility as a court. A series of legal precedents of matrimonial property regimes from Ta-Li-Yuan provide an important way to observe the change of matrimonial relationship regimes at that time. This article’s perspective was according to wives’ property rights to analyze the relations of matrimonial property from Ta-Li-Yuan’s related legal precedents and wives’ rights of certain property. According to this article, Ta-Li-Yuan’s standpoints about wives’ property rights were still conservative as a whole, although it had defined wives’ property rights and broadened them in a certain degree as well. Both the social atmosphere at that time and the obligation for legal trials confined Ta-Li-Yuan’s efforts to improve wives’ status.