1959 Marriage & the Family Law

From: Dan Tsang <dtsang@lib.uci.edu>

Date: Jun 1, 2006 5:47 PM

Subject: [Vsg] 1959 Marriage & the Family Law

Colleagues:

Does anyone have or can direct me to a specific source that has the full

text (in English) of the 1959 Law on Marriage and the Family in Vietnam?

I've found later permuations of the law but not the original one.

I'm trying to help a student.

dan

From: Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>

Date: Jun 1, 2006 7:07 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] 1959 Marriage & the Family La

Dear Dan Tsang,

I read a long time ago the following article on the

1959 Marriage Law of the Democratic Republic of

Vietnam,and I am not sure it has reference to an

English version of the 1959 (North Vietnamese) Law on

Marriage or not, but it has detailed discussion of the

provisions and of the process of consultation of the

masses and legislation drafting (which is noteworthy

in Vietnam, at least for social legislation).

George Ginsburgs, "The Role of Law in the Emancipation

of Women in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam",

AMERICAN JORNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW (Fall, 1975),

613ff.

Here I refer to the North Vietnamese 1959 Law,

because there was another 1959 Vietnamese Marriage and

Family Law in South Vietnam ( pushed hard by Mme Ngo

Dinh Nhu and passed by the South Vietnamese

legislature ).

Tai Van Ta

From: Ed Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>

Date: Jun 1, 2006 6:23 PM

Subject: RE: [Vsg] 1959 Marriage & the Family Law

Dan:

A contemporary English translation of the 1959 law can be found in the March

5, 1960 edition of the TIMES OF VIETNAM MAGAZINE. This magazine was

controlled by the Nhus, so the translation is more or less an official one.

If memory serves, this is available on microfilm.

I don't have it in front of me, but I think William Colby (the CIA station

chief in Saigon at the time) claimed in his memoirs to have assisted Madame

Nhu in translating the Family Code from French to English. So its possible

that this particular text is his handiwork!

Cheers,

Ed

From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>

Date: Jun 1, 2006 8:53 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] 1959 Marriage & the Family Law

It might be in the files of the UC Berkeley Indochina Center, either in

the Woman or Security-Law files, but unfortunately these files are

presently closed to the public, and I am not sure if these or other files

will be transferred to our library, another library or just thrown out.

- Steve Denney

From: Trude Bennett <tabennet@email.unc.edu>

Date: Jun 2, 2006 12:13 PM

Subject: Re: [Vsg] 1959 Marriage & the Family Law

What can we do to prevent these files from being destroyed (e.g., locate

another library or archive that would like to house them)? Trude Bennett

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