The word "civil law" comes from jucivile in Roman law. Roman law is divided into civil law, civil law and natural law. Civil law regulates all kinds of legal relations of people with Roman citizenship, while civil law regulates the legal relations between Roman citizens and foreigners. Since the 3rd century AD, the opposition between civil law and civil law has gradually faded. The complete legal norms of equal rights subject in Roman law were revived through the revival movement of Roman law. In the codification movement in Europe, two epoch-making codes, the French Civil Code (also known as the Napoleonic Code) and the German Civil Code, came into being. Japanese scholar Jin Tian Zhen Dao mistranslated the word "civil law" as "civil law" when introducing the French Civil Code. The political reform in the late Qing Dynasty was copied by China scholars directly from Japan and translated into its present name. However, some scholars believe that the word "civil law" did not come from Japan, but was created by China himself, and the word "civil law" already existed in the ancient book Shangshu of China. The word "civil law" in The Biography of Confucius in Shangshu: "Responsibility list, ministers' names, local officials, and making it clear that the resident law is dead" is regarded by some scholars as the origin of China's civil law (in fact, a written civil code really began to appear in China, which was promulgated by the then National Government in May 1929). Civil law words used in the legislation of civil law countries after modern times, such as droit civil in French, Bürgerliches Recht in German and Burgerlyk Regt in Dutch, are all translated from civil law.

Civil law, on the other hand, has different sources of law, which can be divided into direct sources and indirect sources. Article 1 of the Civil Law of Taiwan Province Province stipulates: "If there is no provision in the civil law, it shall be in accordance with the custom; Those who are not used to it must be governed according to law "is the original norm of civil law. "Among them, laws, customs and precedents are the direct sources of laws, and there are also so-called indirect sources. Indirect sources refer to theories and precedents. At present, the civil law of continental law system is divided into property law, debt law, relative law and inheritance law. The civil law of common law system includes contract law, property law, family law, tort law, trust law and so on. It is generally believed that intellectual property law and commercial law also belong to the category of civil law.

Regarding how to regulate judicial relations, legislation has adopted the system of "separation of civil and commercial affairs", that is, in addition to the civil code regulating personal relations, there is also a "commercial code" regulating commercial transactions. For example, in Germany, France and Japan before World War II, in China, when the national government legislated in the early 20th century, it decided to imitate the Swiss "civil and commercial integration" system, that is, not to establish a commercial code outside the civil code. In a broad sense, China now has other laws involving private affairs besides the Civil Code, which is called special civil law. In addition to commercial laws such as company law, it also includes contract law, tort law, intellectual property law, marriage law, inheritance law and so on. The narrow sense of civil law only refers to the law that regulates a certain range of property relations and personal relations, and ends with the written civil code. It does not include marriage law and laws and regulations belonging to traditional commercial law.

The Civil Code is a legislative document that systematically compiles various systems of civil law according to a certain style. Since the founding of New China, a systematic and complete civil code has not been promulgated. With the development of market economy since the reform and opening up, it is urgent to improve civil legislation and stipulate some basic codes of conduct for civil activities. Under such conditions, People's Republic of China (PRC) formulated and promulgated the General Principles of Civil Law in 1986. Judging from the contents of the General Principles of Civil Law in China, although its provisions are much simpler than those of other countries, the General Principles of Civil Law basically summarizes the general code of conduct of commodity economic activities, including some norms of the General Principles of Civil Law and some contents of the specific provisions of Civil Law.

Because modern civil society is based on equal contract, it is very different from feudal civil society based on class identity relationship, so the concept of "freedom and equality" has evolved into three principles in justice:

Freedom of contract, negligence liability and absolute ownership principle.

Freedom of contract (freedom of contract)

Main clauses: the principle of freedom of contract

This is a basic principle of modern civil law. The principle of freedom of contract in the modern sense can be traced back to the French Civil Code promulgated by 1804. It means that the contractual relationship between individuals should be decided according to the free will of the parties to the contract and should not be interfered by the state. The contents of the principle of freedom of contract include: whether to conclude a contract (freedom to conclude a contract), who to conclude a contract with (freedom to choose the object), what to conclude (freedom of content) and how to conclude a contract (freedom of manner). It is not only a contract, but also a separate act, such as a will. Therefore, this principle has developed into the principle of "autonomy of private law".

Principle of negligence liability

Main clauses: principle of fault liability

Individuals are not liable for compensation for their actions, even if they hurt others, unless they are intentional or negligent. In other words, you will only be liable for compensation for your intentional or negligent behavior. As for infringing on others, it is absolutely irresponsible. So it is also called the principle of "taking responsibility for yourself".