China has been worried about the decline in population rate for a long time. China, the world’s second most populous country, is making various efforts to overcome this problem. However, these efforts have made life difficult for the common people. China is adopting various measures to increase the population rate and tempting promises are being made to the young population. Now China has made marriage registration easier but at the same time has proposed to make divorce more difficult. These measures have created resentment among the people.
These steps are being taken to stop the sharp decline in the birth rate. Under the new proposals, Chinese officials will no longer demand hukou i.e. household registration from couples applying for marriage. Apart from this, a 30-day cooling-off period has also been added to the proposed amendment for those seeking divorce. It is being told that this rule has already come into effect in 2021. This has made it even more difficult to get out of the marriage. But Chinese media outlets have promoted these changes as an attempt to promote “marital freedom”. The draft states that there will be a 30-day cooling off period for divorce, during which if either party is not ready for divorce, they can withdraw the application, thereby ending the divorce registration process.
People are questioning the decision not to ask for household registration for marriage. Public outrage is being seen on social media. Chinese people have questioned the intentions of the authorities. They believe that in this way people will marry more than once. They have expressed concern about fraud. Like X, a user on China’s social platform Weibo.com wrote, “Can the cooling-off period for divorce be considered marital freedom?” On Friday morning, discussions about these proposals remained heated in Weibo’s trending list. Such posts were seen more than 10 crore times. One user wrote, “Where is my right to get a divorce?”
The Chinese government, which long ago abolished its two-child birth control policies, is now struggling to halt a steady decline in new births despite measures to boost fertility. It is also making it more difficult for couples to separate in a bid to reduce the divorce rate, leaving room for more children. There have also been reports that young people in China are not very enthusiastic about marriage. According to Shanghai-based news site The Paper, according to official data, only 34.3 lakh couples tied the knot in the first half of this year, the lowest since 1980.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs this week began seeking public comments on proposed amendments to marriage and divorce procedures until September 11. For decades, original copies of domestic marriage registrations have been a mandatory document and used as a way to prevent bigamy. That means if a couple wants to marry again, they must register at the same place where their first marriage registration was issued. But the proposed changes will now allow people to marry anywhere in the country, as long as they provide their identity card and a declaration confirming they are eligible to marry.
“It’s easy to get married but hard to get divorced, what a stupid rule,” wrote one netizen on Chinese social media platform Weibo, which has been liked by thousands of people. Jiang Quanbao, a professor at the Institute of Population and Development Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong University, told the state-run Global Times newspaper that the regulation aims to “promote the importance of marriage and family.”
(Input Agency)