Many Asian and African constitutional and statutory texts use the phrase personal laws in order to determine the rules applicable to family matters such a marriage, divorce, maintenance and in some countries inheritance. However, this term is extremely vague and often without a clear definition in the legal texts. This paper tries to show the high degree of un-determination of the statutory references to personal laws. This chaotic situation can be explained by historical and political factors. Nevertheless, the paper proposes to stipulate a conventional definition of personal laws in order to facilitate the comparison between the Asian and African countries with a plurality of personal laws. Based on common features of these legal systems knowing a plurality of personal laws, such a definition can be useful for practical as well as for theoretical purposes.

中文翻译：

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属人法：未定规范和未定概念？

许多亚洲和非洲的宪法和成文法都使用属人法一词来确定适用于家庭事务的规则，例如婚姻、离婚、赡养费和在某些国家的继承。但是，该术语非常模糊，并且在法律文本中通常没有明确的定义。本文试图展示对属人法的成文法参照的高度不确定性。这种混乱局面可以用历史和政治因素来解释。尽管如此，本文还是建议对属人法进行约定俗成的定义，以便于比较具有多种属人法的亚非国家。基于这些法律体系的共同特点，了解了多种属人法，