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Marriages break down amid rising wealth
(chinadaily.com.cn/nytimes)
Updated: 2005-10-04 11:08 Unhappiness with a "poor sex life" played a role in 20 percent of divorces in
Guangzhou, a study said.
Mr. Yuan, the psychotherapist, runs a private counseling center in Guangzhou.
He said 80 percent of the patients who came to him for marital counseling
complain of adultery. "There are more choices now in sex," Mr. Yuan said. "The
change in traditional family values has led to more affairs."
Ms. Cai, the woman divorced in June, discovered a photograph of her husband
and his lover. Infuriated, she told him that he must stop seeing his mistress,
but he refused. Ms. Cai's parents fretted about the shame associated with
divorce.
"My father said, 'You have a child and you should stick with the marriage,' "
she said. "But I couldn't take it. My husband thought I was boring because I
just went to work and came home. He said we had no social life."
Like an increasing number of younger women, Ms. Cai had a job, which gave her
greater flexibility in deciding to leave. So in June, she arranged to meet her
husband at the civil affairs office for a divorce. "He was late for the divorce
appointment," she said. "He was late for the marriage, too. He was always
late."
Two months ago, Ms. Cai took a new job at a Guangzhou agency that introduced
foreign men to Chinese women, the equivalent of a mail-order bride company.
Three of the agency's seven employees are divorced; so are 80 percent of the
women who are signed up to meet foreign men. Inside the office, a wall is
covered with photographs of middle-aged foreign men hugging mostly middle-aged
Chinese women.
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