On this day, 56 years ago, on July 18, 1969 (June 5, 1969 in the lunar calendar), Hong Kong abolished the concubinage system of "Chinese law governing Chinese". Since the establishment of Hong Kong as a port, monogamy has only a short history of 40 years. On July 18, 1969, the Hong Kong government gazetted the "Monogamous" Marriage Bill, announcing that the "Marriage System Revision Ordinance" would be officially implemented from October 7, 1971. After that, China-style marriage: including old, new and concubinage forms, were all abolished. In February 1841, long before the British side fully took over Hong Kong, the British Plenipotentiary, Guilty Law, and Boehme jointly issued two announcements in Hong Kong, known as the "Guilty Law Proclamation." The announcement stated: "Overseas Chinese residents on the island should be governed by China laws and customs, but all kinds of torture shall be abolished. As for the British or other people, the current British criminal and maritime laws shall be applied and governed." Later, Hong Kong's first governor, Pu Dingcha, told British Foreign Secretary Aberden in a letter in 1843 that he agreed that all China living in Hong Kong should govern with their own laws. This policy of "Chinese laws governing Chinese" has made China laws, especially customary laws on family, marriage and property disputes, long-term existence in Hong Kong society. The Legislative Council of Hong Kong has promulgated various laws to fully recognize traditional weddings. For example, the British Hong Kong authorities promulgated the Marriage Ordinance twice in 1852 and 1857, but its provisions only applied to people in Hong Kong and allowed Chinese to follow Qing Dynasty wedding customs, which implicitly affirmed the legal status of customary marriage in China. The "married woman" stipulated in the 1905 "Married Women Abandoned Maintenance Ordinance" includes (marriage) or any Chinese man married in accordance with China laws and customs, which also legally gives the right to distribute and inherit the property of the wife. The 1912 Chinese Marriage Preservation Ordinance legally protects the right of a husband's wife or householder to claim damages in the event of adultery. However, scholar Gao Xuchen pointed out that "British culture is the dominant factor in Hong Kong culture, and it is also the cultural foundation of Hong Kong's legal system. In fact, Hong Kong's legal system is still dominated by the British legal model. China's laws and customs are limited to an effective and controllable range. The purpose is to maintain the basic ethical order of the local Chinese and achieve the goal of stabilizing the rule of the British Hong Kong government. Liu Yongshu once pointed out in his article "The History of Hong Kong" that "the British rulers claimed to use the 'Chinese Laws' to govern the Chinese, not to respect China's laws and customs, but to use Eastern feudal autocracy to establish Western colonial rule." At the same time, the conservative Chinese forces in Hong Kong are also working hard to maintain the traditional system of concubinage. Until 1930, the hidden custom of taking concubinage, which was still visible in Hong Kong Chinese society. Generally speaking, in old China, the vast majority of civilian families were monogamous, and only upper-class people such as bureaucrats, rich people, and other upper-class people kept concubines. This was also true in colonial Hong Kong. Some wealthy Chinese businessmen not only have rich families, but also have important positions in society and have many contacts with the British Hong Kong authorities. The British Hong Kong authorities also need to use their power to stabilize their rule in Hong Kong, so they have long turned a deaf ear to the marriage issue of Hong Kong Chinese. With the accumulation of history, habits left over from the Qing Dynasty, such as raising maidservants, raising brides, and taking concubines, have been strongly criticized and impacted by British Christian ethics. Especially from the 1923 Domestic Servicing Ordinance to the termination of the sale and maintenance of maidservants in 1938. The enactment of laws on the sale and maintenance of maidservants, Hong Kong's "Anti-Servicing Movement" dealt a heavy blow to the Chinese conservative forces and gradually established a new concept of "modern family" among the people. Moreover, in 1930, the Nanjing government of the Republic of China promulgated the Civil Code of the Republic of China, which stipulated a new paradigm of "new marriage." In the following twenty years, this "civilized marriage" became popular in Hong Kong. According to statistics, between 1930 and 1960, new marriage occupied the mainstream position in Hong Kong. At the same time, customary marriages are also slowly declining, while the number of registered marriages under the Marriage Ordinance promulgated by the British Hong Kong government is gradually increasing, accounting for about 50% of the total married population between 1960 and 1964. Under the joint influence of different marriage laws, Hong Kong's marriage system after 1930 appeared to coexist in diversity. However, due to the complex and chaotic marriage system, especially the concubinage system, it led to constant family and property disputes in Hong Kong society, which made the British Hong Kong authorities greatly troubled. In October 1948, the Governor of Hong Kong, Alexander Grantham, appointed a seven-member committee headed by Attorney General John Stone to review the China laws and habits used by Chinese people in Hong Kong and discuss whether they should be revised, repealed or fully incorporated into Hong Kong laws. The "Recommendation of the Research Committee on China Laws and Customs" later written by this member clearly put forward the amendment of the law prohibiting concubinage. However, this opinion has not been supported and affirmed by the mainstream society in Hong Kong. In the 1950s, women's groups such as the Hong Kong Women's Association loudly called for the prohibition of concubinage from the perspective of safeguarding the rights of legitimate wives, and repeatedly put forward requirements for a new marriage law based on the principle of equal rights between men and women. In order to respond to the opinions of all parties, in 1958, Governor Robert Black appointed the Department of Justice and the Secretary for Chinese Affairs to conduct a new investigation into the issue of Chinese marriage in Hong Kong. In 1960, he issued the "Report on Chinese Marriage in Hong Kong", arguing that customary marriages, like the "girl" system, had "lost its contemporary character." Although it was not recommended to "arbitrarily" completely abolish the ceremony of customary marriages, it was recommended to convert both customary marriages and new marriages into registered marriages. When this report came out, it caused an uproar in Hong Kong, and opinions from all parties clashed fiercely. In 1962, the Hong Kong Chinese Affairs Bureau participated in the "Seminar on the Status of Women in Family Law" held by the United Nations in Tokyo. The conference included the issue of marriage in Hong Kong as a key discussion and attracted the attention of the British Hong Kong authorities. Three years later, in 1965, the Department of Justice, the Secretary for Home Affairs, and Chinese unofficial members of the Executive and Legislative Councils reached a consensus and submitted the McDouall-Heenan Report to the government. The Executive Council quickly approved the report and submitted it to the British Ministry of Justice, where it was confirmed by the Secretary of State. While the British Hong Kong government was drafting a bill to ban concubinage, public opinion was also fiercely criticizing this old marriage custom. Hong Kong's growing status as an "international metropolis" is no longer able to bear the historical legacy of the "Qing Dynasty Laws". In 1967, the "Overseas Chinese Daily" published an article titled "Qing Dynasty Laws and Marriage Law", which strongly criticized the concubinage system that existed in Hong Kong society at that time and pointed the finger at the British colonial rule hidden behind it. The article said: "In the 1960s, Hong Kong is an international city. Today, when major changes have taken place around the world, Hong Kong has the so-called" Qing Law "marriage law. This is not only pitiful and ridiculous, but also fully demonstrates what kind of society Hong Kong is and what the Hong Kong government and the British people with the Hong Kong government really attitude towards Hong Kong. In the same year, the British Hong Kong authorities issued a new white paper to explain to the public the main proposals on marriage issues, hoping to attract widespread public attention and provide more opportunities for the public to express their opinions. After nearly 20 years of controversy, the Hong Kong authorities finally gazetted and announced the monogamy bill, abolishing the system of concubinage.