This thesis will explore and describe the diverse embedded feature of Taiwan’s Family Law under Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945) in which Taiwanese old customs, modern Western legal concepts and Japanese Family and Succession Law in 1896 were blended by the colonial court judgments, the modern legal mechanism that possessed the power to interpret the law.
Though the judgments, the colonial court not only infused the Meiji civil law’s concept of family but also introduced the spirit of modern individualism and liberalism to fight against Chinese traditional family image as an attempt to realize modernization and japanization. While the court tried to duplicate the concept of the head of Japanese family into Taiwan, it also strived for transforming the old custom to buying wife and giving the concubine right to leave her husband. However, since the positive development of Taiwanese female legal status was forced by colonial court’s efforts, or state law, the old custom that treat woman as object still remained intact and Taiwanese female faced even much more harsh time under colonial era.