Development Of The Institution Of Division Of Marital Property According To The Legislation That Was In Force On Ukrainian Lands

Abstract

The scientific article examines the issue of the development of the institution of the division of marital property according to the legislation that was in force on Ukrainian lands. On the basis of the conducted research, the author comes to a conclusion that during the period of operation of Roman private law on the territory of the Greek polis states of the Northern Black Sea region, the institution of the division of joint property of spouses existed only de facto through the mechanism of transfer of property transferred as a «premarital gift». Norms of canonical and princely law of the Kyiv state did not contain provisions on the division of property of spouses, however, in the customary law of that time there was a practice of separating property into the ownership of a family member, in particular, the division of joint property could also apply to one spouse who received the corresponding property rights, primarily in order of inheritance. In the Lithuanian Statute of 1588, next to separate property, for the first time the possibility of joint ownership of property acquired during marriage was recognized, but only for representatives of the peasant class, but the procedure for the division of such property was not defined. In the «Laws by which the Little Russian People are judged», for the first time at the level of a draft of a written legal act, the specifics of the division of the property of the spouses in the event of a divorce are defined; the provisions of the Code of Laws of the Russian empire provided for the possibility of only contractual regulation of the division of joint property of spouses and only with respect to that property that was located within the boundaries of the Kyiv, Volyn, and Podillia governorates. The judicial procedure for resolving disputes about the division of joint property of spouses was introduced in the Galician Civil Code, and the Austrian civil code allowed the possibility of establishing joint property by a separate contract of the spouses and also determined that the joint property of the spouses is terminated, and the property in question is subject to division in the event of recognition of one of the spouses incapacitated, «voluntary divorce», «judicial divorce», annulment of marriage or its dissolution. For the first time, the legal regime of joint ownership of property acquired by spouses during the marriage on Ukrainian lands was determined by the Law of the Ukrainian People’s Republic «On Marriage and Divorce and on the Registration of Acts of Marriage, Divorce, Birth and Death», and subsequently by Soviet acts of family legislation, starting with the Code of family, guardianship, marriage and acts of civil status UPCP of 1926. Despite the fact that the Decree of the Soviet People’s Committee of the Ukrainian SSR «On civil marriage and keeping records of acts of civil status» and the Code of Laws on acts of civil status, on family and guardianship of 1919, it was assumed that property acquired in marriage was not considered joint property of the spouses, however, in the judicial practice of that time regarding the resolution of disputes about divorce, the opposite was recognized and the judicial division of such property, acquired by their joint labor and funds, was carried out. The procedure and methods of division of common property were initially determined by acts of civil legislation and since 1969 — family legislation. At the same time, the principle of equal shares of spouses in common property was also introduced in 1969.