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While 2006 may be considered an auspicious year to get married, it has not been so lucky for those already wed in Shanghai. Couples across the city have rushed to tie the knot in the past few months to mark the year of the dog.

While more than 110,000 Shanghai couples married in the first nine months of this year, 27,000 married couples have parted through divorce. The number is 20 percent higher than during the same period last year.

People in Shanghai now live in one of the highest divorce-rate cities in China. They seem to have abandoned the conventional mindset of seeing divorce as a taboo, instead viewing it as an acceptable part of life

Rising trend

"Divorce is everywhere, in offices, in residential communities, in gatherings of old classmates and friends, and even in public places like buses you may overhear conversations about it," said 32-year-old Wang Shuwei, who was divorced from his wife last month.

"When I decided to divorce from my wife, I didn't listen to my parents and restrain myself. I just did it based on my own emotional needs," said Wang. "I couldn't put up with my wife after we were married for four years.

"The love was gone and we seemed to have nothing but complaints about daily life, there was distrust between each other and endless quarrels."

Marriage experts say Shanghai residents today show different attitudes towards marriage than previous generations. "They focus more on spiritual enjoyment than the material satisfaction," said Xu Anqi,a marriage expert in Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Previously, Shanghai locals placed greater emphasis on income, working conditions and physical appearance than emotional feelings or love. They were once seen by the rest of the country as people who were too snobbish on the issue of marriage.

But now the younger generation tends to be able to focus more on their inner feelings, as the economic conditions for most people in Shanghai have been greatly improved.

"As the young generation, we regard it as a rather natural thing to divorce with our spouses if we don't have any love in our daily life," said Wang. "The rapidly changing society brings a great challenge to marital stability," said Xu. "A cross-section of factors keeps driving up the divorce rate."

Last year, 1.78 million couples in China were divorced, 120,000 more than the previous year. Shanghai alone saw about 30,000 divorces, 12 percent up on 2004.

Easier procedures

The length of marriages has become shorter and shorter. The one-week marriage, one-month marriage and half-year-marriage are not unusual in Shanghai.

The simplification of divorce procedures is believed to be a major factor in the rise. In days gone by, those who wanted to get divorced had to get approval first from their employers. Usually the employers would persuade them to drop the plans, as divorce was seen as a disgrace for the whole work unit. Few people could successfully walk into the divorce office and get a divorce certificate.

"I originally planned to get divorced from my wife in the 1990s, but at that time divorce required numerous procedures, which added great difficulty to ending the relationship," said a man, who asked not to be named, was married for 20 years, but is now divorced. "The procedures now are easy, and we ended our marriage in minutes after we went to the divorce office. I feel finally relieved to end a marriage that was without love."

Post-marriage blues

A recent survey showed that people aged between 28 and 35 account for one-fifth of all divorced people. They also face the most volatile marital relationships, and are most susceptible to divorce.

According to Xu's analysis, young people spend less and less time getting to know each other before marriage. They tend to present the best aspect of themselves before their future spouses and hide the negatives.

"Once married, they feel disappointed to see various kinds of shortcomings of their spouses, which they were unaware of before marriage," said Xu. "If they didn't have any babies, it's easier for young people who usually have no patience to choose divorce."

Affairs and one-night stands are becoming more common in cities like Beijing and Shanghai. These unconventional relationships are seen as greatly changing traditional morality and marital belief.

The ratio of young people having one-night stands in large cities in China in recent years has risen in line with the growth of the Internet, especially virtual chat rooms. A survey showed that 34.7 percent of one-night stands were cyber-friends and 24.4 percent met first in Internet chat rooms.

With increased mobility, more and more people flood to big cities such as Shanghai and get married with each other or with locals. The disparity of family and cultural backgrounds as well as values can create problems in marriages.

(China Daily October 30, 2006)