Attempts to Codify Personal Matrimony Law in the Second Polish Republic. A Fiasco or Perhaps a Success?

Abstract

After regaining independence in 1918, Poland inherited five different post-partition legal orders from the 19th century, regulating personal matrimony law on its territory, i.e. Prussian, Austrian, Hungarian, Russian and Polish from the times of the Kingdom of Poland. This situation required urgent reform and taking codification steps. The codification task was entrusted to the Codification Commission, established in 1919. Its result was the governmental matrimony law Project adopted in 1929, known as Lutostański’s Project. Unfortunately, it was not passed by the Sejm. It happened because of the opposition of the Catholic Church and other conservative forces. The reasons for this state of affairs were too modern, for those times, legal solutions contained therein, and above all, the possibility of obtaining a divorce. Many legal solutions included in this project can be found in modern matrimony law, i.e. almost a hundred years later. Nevertheless, the very idea of codification and the adopted main principles of matrimony law should be considered a success of Polish legal thought. The more so because many of these solutions were used in post-war Poland in the Decree on matrimony law in 1945 and are known in contemporary matrimony law.