China bucks a Western import: divorce

[Smartmarriages ©]

Kevin Platt (plattk at csps.com) 
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BEIJING 

Beijing's market-oriented economic revolution, aimed at transforming China
into a world power, is also triggering rapid-fire changes in the spheres 
of
social and family life here.

Growing freedom among China's 1.2 billion citizens to map out their own
professional and personal lives is generating not only rising incomes, but
also rising expectations for the "perfect" marriage. As a result, divorce 
is
skyrocketing.

"In the past, many marriages were political," says Ma Fengzhi, a sociology
professor at Beijing University. "Everyone from Army officers to 
bureaucrats
to workers had to have their potential spouses approved by party bosses," 
says
Ms. Ma.

"Today, people have the freedom to choose their own partners, so it's 
natural
that some want to discard their political matches...." she adds.

Western influence may also play a role. "Chinese youths raised on 
Hollywood
films and American television say, 'If young Americans can fall in and 
out of
love so easily, why can't we,' " Ma says.

"That could be leading more and more young people into hasty marriages and
hasty divorces," she adds.

A generation of Chinese have grown up since Beijing ended its global 
isolation
20 years ago.

The number of couples seeking divorce has nearly quadrupled in the two 
decades
since China began jettisoning its state-planned economy and society.

In 1997, while 9.1 million couples got married, 1.2 million got divorced,
according to the Chinese civil affairs ministry. A dozen years before, 8.3
million couples married while only 450,000 formally split.

The trend has apparently alarmed the Chinese leadership, which is 
proposing a
new marriage law that could make it much more difficult to obtain a 
divorce.

The suggested changes, which include strict penalties for adulterers, are
sparking a charged debate among the people, in the press, and in 
parliament
over how closely to regulate the marriage contract.

Yang Dawen, who heads a committee that is revising and expanding the 
family
and marriage law, says that current regulations "provide too few 
guideposts to
judges considering whether to grant a divorce and on what terms."

Mr. Yang, a law professor at People's University in Beijing, says many
scholars being consulted "think that no-fault divorce rules should be 
amended
to punish those who break their marriage vows with extramarital affairs."

One idea being floated includes sanctions on not only the spouse, but 
also the
"third party" who commits adultery.

Yet contrary to widely circulating rumors, the police are not going to be
enlisted in any drive to track down adulterers for prosecution.

"The new law would punish adulterers with civil fines rather than criminal
penalties," says Guo Jianmei, who runs a women's rights clinic in Beijing.

And although the party once tried to monitor every aspect of the Chinese
people's political and private lives, "spouses seeking to prove adultery 
will
have to gather their own evidence," says Ms. Guo.

Many Chinese say the strengthened divorce law is designed to help mask a 
moral
vacuum that has followed the collapse of communist beliefs since troops 
fired
on pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.

"Communism destroyed our Confucian traditions, and no one believes in
communism anymore, so our moral codes have disappeared," says a young
university lecturer in Beijing.

Sociologist Ma says, "China's social changes are rushing ahead at a 
breakneck
speed, and the law is trying to catch up."

Professor Yang agrees, and adds that the reemergence of private property 
in
China requires an entire new set of rules to guide divorce settlements.

In the decade following the 1949 communist revolution, landowners and 
factory
heads were executed or imprisoned while their holdings were nationalized.

During Mao Zedong's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, privately owned jewelry,
religious relics, artworks, and even books were forcibly seized by Red 
Guards.

The rare divorces granted during Mao's era involved very simple divisions 
of
pots and pans, but market reforms launched since his passing in 1976 have
already created 1 million Chinese millionaires.

"We need more precise rules to calculate and split communal property in 
light
of the new economic era," says Yang.

Yang says the new law is likely to provide protection for the rich who 
want to
hold onto their riches.

For the first time in communist Chinese history, he says, the marriage law
"will approve the writing of prenuptial agreements on the division of 
property
in the event of a divorce."




"Around the Coalition" shares a wide range of information on marriage, 
divorce, and educational approaches.  Opinions expressed are not 
necessarily shared by members of the Coalition. 

To subscribe to the FREE CMFCE on-line newsletter, send a "subscribe" 
message by reply email or send to: list at smartmarriages.com
To unsubscribe send a message to: majordomo at his.com and put:
"unsubscribe smartmarriages" in the message body WITHOUT the quotation 
marks. 

ALL past newsletter postings are archived at:
http://archives.his.com/smartmarriages/index.html#start  

The 3rd Annual Smart Marriages®/Happy Families conference will be held
July 1-4, 1999 in Washington, DC. PRE and POST conference full-day
training/certifying institutes on June 30 & July 1 AND July 5 & 6. 

Tapes of all presentations at the 1997  & 1998 Smart Marriages 
conferences at 800-241-7785 or at tapes at the-resource-link.com.  Audio 
tapes
are $10, video tapes are $24.95.  

To list your name in the Directory of Programs and Providers visit the 
Website: http://www.smartmarriages.com 

Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE)
Diane Sollee, Director
5310 Belt Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20015-1961
202-362-3332  FAX 202-362-0973