A cartoon appeared in a Beijing local newspaper one day: two people getting married in front of a clergyman, a registrar beside the couple saying, "Wait, the wedding ring has not been notarized yet."
Property notarization is no longer a new phenomenon in the country. A survey among the youth in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai in 1996 showed that 65 out of 100 young men and women were willing to sign a deal before marriage to avoid any future troubles in property settlement.
Mr. Zhang and Ms Liu got married on November 28. The day before the wedding ceremony, they went to the Changchun Notarization Office to fill in a form for the property settlement.
"This is the second marriage for both of us," said Zhang. "My ex-wife and I had a quarrel on property when we got divorced, so this time we agreed to sign a contract beforehand."
However, antenuptial property settlement has not always been a smooth task. Chen Xiaojuan, a registrar in the northeastern Changchun City, used the word "arduous" to describe its evolution in the past few years.
"Two or three years ago, people thought it was ridiculous, and no one seemed to care about it at all," said Chen. "The Chinese have been accustomed to the concept that they will be together for the rest of their lives when they get married, and couples should not make it clear what is whose."
Things have changed. Shanghai Notarization Office handled 457 marriage settlement cases last year, compared to only 20 in 1993.
Official figures show that while about 9 million couples get married each year in China, some 450,000 couples get divorced according to a mutual agreement, and about 7,00 couples end their married life through the courts. Disputes and fights during divorce proceedings have made people aware of the importance of marriage settlement.
Related statistics show that in Chinese metropolises, an increasing number of couples have signed marriage settlements.
Local notarization offices in Changchun have dealt with more than 100 such cases so far this year.
Xiao Ling, a middle-school teacher in Beijing got married four years ago with a businessman under a pre-nuptial contract. "I do not think that the contract or the marriage settlement can undermine our love for each other. On the contrary, it has enhanced our confidence in our marriage because we are better prepared than before," Xiao said.
"I can not guarantee that no problems will occur in our marriage. It is better to arrange the property than to fight it out in court later," she added. The divorce rate in China has grown to about 10 percent.
Yu Wei, a professor in the Psychology Dept. of Northeast China Teachers' University said that the change of concept reflects social development: people are learning how to protect their rights with laws.
"But, only less than one percent of first marriage couples turn to the marriage settlement," said Yu. One of the reasons is that the majority of young people have few things of value when they get married, Yu explained.
Also, the rise of individual incomes and a higher educational level of the general public may make it easier for these people to accept the concept of a pre-nuptial contract.
An amendment to the current Marriage Law is also under discussion to deal with divorces. It focuses on bigamy, family property, domestic violence, condition for divorce and void marriage, and the protection of rights of children and senior citizens.
The amendment does not provide it as a compulsory proceeding for couples to sign antenuptial settlements, it merely offers people an alternative.
(People’s Daily 12/12, 2000)
