'The Invention of Tradition’ or ‘The Politics of Intervention’: The Origins of the Hong Kong Marriage Reform Ordinance 1971

Abstract

The principal purpose of the Marriage Reform Ordinance (“MRO”) in 1971 was to establish a new and modern marriage system to Hong Kong and to abolish in the territory the discriminatory practices of Chinese customary marriage such as concubinage and unilateral rights of divorce by men. Before the new law was introduced, conservative forces in Hong Kong such as the senior Chinese members of the Executive Council had consistently rejected the demands for change in order to preserve what they considered as the essence of Chinese customary practices and family order. Without a strong local demand for the equality for men and women, and most importantly, the relentless political pressures from the Colonial Office (and later the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) to bring the marriage system in conformity with the human rights standard under international conventions, the MRO might not have become law in Hong Kong. The complicated nature of the politics of marriage law reform in Hong Kong in the late 1960s and early 1970s suggests that for the late twentieth century at least the concept of ‘legal orientalism’ has limited analytical value.