Japanese Civil CodeArticle Free Pass Japanese Civil Code,
Japanese Mimpō, body of private law adopted in 1896 that, with
post-World War II modifications, remains in effect in present-
day Japan. The code was the result of various movements for
modernization following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. A legal
code was required that would fill the needs of the new free-
enterprise system that predominated with the dissolution of
feudal landholdings. At the same time, the Japanese desired to
present themselves to the world as a more modern nation in hope
of renegotiating certain unfavourably balanced and often even
humiliating treaties with Western nations. The resulting code
was modeled on the first draft of the German Civil Code, itself
very Roman in structure and substance. The code is divided into
five books. Those on family and succession retain certain
vestiges of the old patriarchal family system that was the basis
of Japanese feudalism. It was in these sections that most of the
postwar revisions were made. At