In 2000, 0.96 couples per 1000 inhabitants separated throughout the country, increasing to 3.36 in 2019
Betrayal by a spouse is not a sufficient reason to seek divorce in China. This was established by the provincial high court of Shandong, interpreting the provisions of the Communist Party: an escapade is acceptable, only a long coexistence with the lover can determine the conditions for separation.
The provision was published on the official account of the province, recalling that the Civil Code of the Communist Party considers “bigamy or cohabitation with others” as a legal condition for divorce and the resulting compensation, but that the simple acquisition of evidence of a betrayal by one of the spouses does not meet this condition. So if a married person is sporadically cheated on, they cannot file for divorce.
The article immediately caused an avalanche of protests on the web, and was withdrawn to prevent the case from taking on an exaggerated significance. Some Chinese netizens observed that “it is a loss of morality and a distortion of human nature”, others that “betrayal is in fact being encouraged in a disguised form” and that “the divorce rate is not being reduced,” only the rate of marriages is decreasing ”.
The Dexiang law firm in Beijing, consulted by Lu Media, argued that this interpretation of the law is wrong, because if living with another person can cause divorce with a request for damages, so is a single betrayal: the courts they usually do not reject divorce cases based on non-repetitive casual adventures.
The position taken by the court of Shandong, the second most populous province in China with 92 million inhabitants, aims to reduce the number of divorces, which are constantly growing throughout the country. In 2000, 0.96 couples per 1000 inhabitants separated, increasing to 3.36 in 2019. As in the rest of the world, the main cause of divorce filings in China is spouse’s betrayal and the easiest way to reduce the the number of separations is therefore no longer considered a sufficient reason to ask for the end of the marriage when it does not also produce a cohabitation.
Shangdon’s court has been inundated with criticism, but perhaps it was just ahead of its time. With all the supply and demand out there, betrayal is beginning to be accepted in Western societies as one of the inevitable aspects of married life. Not destroying a marriage just for an escapade will sooner or later become desirable and necessary, not only in China.
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