China Tried to Gradual Divorces by Making {Couples} Wait. As a substitute, They Rushed.

Last December, Emma Shi urgently needed an appointment at the Shanghai Civil Affairs Office but couldn’t get one. She scoured the internet to quickly find someone who could help.

Your request: Help me get a divorce within one day.

Ms. Shi, a 38-year-old engineer, attempted to precede a Chinese government rule that couples seeking divorce must wait 30 days from January 1. Ms. Shi said that forcing unhappy couples to stay married would only lead to further fighting.

“It would be very unbearable for anyone,” she said. “The relationship is already broken.”

The new cooling off period was introduced to prevent impulsive divorce, but it created a mess late last year for couples desperately wanting to separate.

China’s steadily rising divorce rate has exacerbated challenges to the ruling Communist Party’s efforts to reverse a demographic crisis that threatens economic growth. The number of marriages has fallen every year since 2014, and officials are increasingly concerned that more married couples are acting hastily to untie the knot.

“Some couples fought in the morning and divorced in the afternoon,” said Long Jun, an expert who worked to incorporate the rule into the country’s new civil code, in an interview with the official Legal Daily. “To reduce this phenomenon, the Civil Code has been designed to address this systematically.”

Data released last week by the Department of Civil Affairs showed that more than a million divorce petitions were filed in the last three months of 2020, up 13 percent from the same period last year.

The trend was strong in several major cities. Beijing saw divorces jump 36 percent to nearly 27,000 cases. In Shenzhen, they rose 26 percent to more than 11,600 cases. In the southwestern community of Chongqing, there was a 15 percent increase to 35,000 cases. For the last two weeks of December, about 40 couples filed for divorce every day, twice as many as a year ago, a district official in Chongqing told a local newspaper.

In Shanghai, divorce petitions rose 53 percent to 20,000 during that period. Ms. Shi, the engineer, just met the deadline. She said she and her husband agreed to the divorce after finding out in December that he cheated on her.

On December 30, she found a fixer on Xianyu, a used-item trading app, who promised to closely monitor the Civil Affairs Bureau’s website for any slots that might become free. She paid him $ 50.

Ms. Shi got an appointment that evening – and her divorce came through the next morning. “I am very grateful,” she said. In her view, she said, “It is marriage that needs reflection,” not divorce.

Mandatory waiting times for divorce – to allow for reflection, reconciliation, organization of finances or discussions about custody – are not uncommon in many countries. In China, however, the move met with skepticism and concern. The hashtag # OpposeCoolingOffPeriod # generated 81,000 comments on Weibo, a popular social media website. People felt that the government was encroaching on their personal lives.

“We have seen enough evidence that people who are not satisfied with their marriage find ways to get out even if they make the divorce more difficult and raise more hurdles,” said Ke Li, assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who has been studying divorce disputes in China for 15 years.

Women’s rights activists say the waiting time could further disadvantage mothers who stay home and often do not have an independent income to pay for a lawsuit. For those who are urgently seeking a resolution, the order to wait could make legal proceedings more difficult. Even after they finish waiting, couples would have to schedule another appointment to finalize the divorce.

The rule also grants any spouse the power to withdraw the divorce petition if they disagree, which could further put domestic violence victims at risk, activists said. The government said that in such cases, victims could turn to a court to dissolve their marriage.

Shen Jinjin, a 34-year-old insurance company employee, has been married to a man who she says berates her and her parents for over three years. In January she decided to leave him.

Ms. Shen, who lives in southern Zhangzhou City, said she believed her husband’s behavior amounted to domestic violence. But she had followed her friends’ advice and got divorced instead of suing him, a process that would have taken longer.

Ms. Shen expected to get a divorce on Saturday. She described the wait as “real agony” and added that what she was most concerned about was that her husband would change his mind.

“I’m under a lot of pressure,” said Ms. Shen. “I don’t know what harm he could do to me.”

For many, the rush to get divorced before the rule went into effect meant that in cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, residents sometimes had to wait up to a month for an appointment. Some described having made unusual efforts to beat the crowd.

In Guangzhou, Li Sisi, a 28-year-old cosmetics store owner on the Taobao e-commerce platform, said she stayed up until midnight for several nights in September in anticipation of the date’s publication by the Guangzhou Civil Affairs Bureau waiting slots on his website.

Ms. Li finally secured a place in October, but her husband couldn’t make it. She tried again and was finally able to dissolve the marriage on December 21st.

Ms. Li said she decided to get a divorce because her marriage, which was far away, made her unhappy. She has a 3 year old daughter but said she would not stay married just because of her child, unlike many parents of previous generations. “This generation has spiritual needs,” she said.

“As I want to get a divorce,” she added, “another day and minute of being together suffers for me.”

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