Civil , originating from the Latin word civīlis , is an adjective that can be used in various ways. The first meaning mentioned in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) refers to that which is linked to citizens or citizenship . For example: «With a group of neighbors we created a civil association to help the needy people in the neighborhood.»
The notion is often used to name something that is neither ecclesiastical nor military . The idea of civil aviation , in this sense, refers to air transport that is not linked to the military (i.e., military aviation). Civil marriage , on the other hand, is carried out by a state authority, unlike religious marriage.
Civil disobedience is a method of protest that involves not obeying a mandate imposed by the State . It is a resistance exercised by a citizen, without taking refuge in an institution, and which is practiced peacefully. A man who is called to fight in a war can exercise civil disobedience and not respond to the call. This type of behavior usually has some kind of punishment.
A civil war , on the other hand, is a military conflict in which two or more sides formed by citizens and not by military personnel confront each other. In a conventional war, the confrontation takes place between armies .
Another way of defining the concept of civil war is to focus on the fact that the political axes that are engaged in war belong to the same State, and the conflict takes place in the same country. This characteristic undeniably differentiates it from conventional war. In this case, the problem does not originate from a nationalist issue (although there may be a nuance of this type) but from an ideological one.
There are examples of civil wars from many centuries ago and in various parts of the world. Between the years 306 and 324, for example, the Civil War of the Roman Tetrarchy took place, one of the most important of its time, in which the Empire was divided into four territories governed by emperors, who fought to gain control of the territory.
The An Lushan Rebellion , on the other hand, took place between 755 and 763 in China, where a group of rebels fought for the founding of a new dynasty, called Yan , and managed to disintegrate the Tang dynasty. We can also mention the civil wars that constituted the so-called Guelph-Ghibelline Conflict , between 1125 and 1382, which pitted many supporters of the German Emperor against the Papal States.
Already in the 19th century, there were cases whose wounds are still open, as was the case of the Argentine Civil War , a conflict that lasted for almost seven decades from 1814 and which had as protagonists the federalists and the unitarians. Throughout the years, several confrontations took place, until its definitive conclusion in 1880, after the Battle of Corrales Viejos.
We cannot fail to mention the Spanish Civil War , which began after the 1936 coup d'état led by a portion of the armed forces did not achieve the desired results and led to an economic crisis . It is a very complex page in Spanish history, which includes struggles against the dictatorship, clashes between different classes, opposition of religious and nationalist positions, all bathed in blood and often similar accusations.
In the field of law , the idea of civil law refers to interests and relationships of a private nature, which belong to the individual or family sphere . Therefore, civil law is the branch of law responsible for regulating private ties between citizens .