According to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the divorce rate in China has continued to rise since 2003. In 2020, the divorce rate reached 43.83%, which means that the number of divorce registrations in this year reached nearly half of the number of marriage registrations. When did divorce litigation arise in the country? What are the changes in claims in divorce cases? Is divorce getting harder? We interviewed a 17-year-old matrimonial and family lawyer whose dictation is as follows:
Dictation | Tan Fang
Reporter | Li Xiaojie
From divorce lawyer to matrimonial and family lawyer
I officially became a divorce lawyer in 2004, which is probably the first batch of lawyers in China to deal with divorce litigation cases. At that time, the domestic legal profession was only divided into two categories, litigation lawyers and non-litigation lawyers, litigation lawyers are mostly golden oil, do everything in the case, no lawyer said that I only play divorce cases, because first, there were not many divorces in the court at that time; second, the main problem of divorce lawsuits at that time was "inseparable", at most it was to compete for child custody, rarely involving complex issues such as property division, which was considered to have a low threshold and no professional content.
Stills from "Chinese Divorce"
I was clear that I wanted to be a divorce lawyer for several reasons: First, I read a book about American stars, which mentioned that when a star divorced, he found a very powerful divorce lawyer and helped him obtain a lot of property. Already subdivided into this area? "Second, at the beginning of the century, private wealth slowly accumulated, some places demolition boom, real estate is also more, divorce cases will involve more property competition, I have worked in the court, although mainly responsible for the criminal court, but friends around me consulted me about some marriage cases, many do not hire lawyers, after the lawsuit lost, only to think of asking the legal person, but it is too late. The third is that I personally like to do mediation work, working in the court, I am a neutral referee role, and being a lawyer can selectively help those who are vulnerable and ignorant of the law, and have more initiative.
Combining the environment and personal preferences, I decided to transform into a divorce case and in the same year created a website for divorce lawyers in Shanghai.
I will share my own cases on the website and accept consultation from netizens. At that time, the divorce problem of counseling was more procedural: how should I get a divorce? What are the procedures for divorce? These are all very basic questions. I remember hearing my predecessors say that in the past, as a judge, divorce cases should be divided into coal balls and seat benches at home, and at that time, the view was that divorce was only a matter of time. One noticeable change now is that divorce proceedings involve more division of property. Real estate, equity, inheritance rights, etc., which are related to the development of the economy of the times, require lawyers to have a more comprehensive knowledge background.
Stills from The Most Perfect Divorce
In 2008, the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme People's Court began to implement a diversified resolution mechanism for divorce, and also encouraged the society and the people to conduct pre-litigation mediation and digest more cases, not just litigation. At that time, I felt that we should also be called another way, "divorce lawyer" sounded like I had to get a divorce here, so I changed the divorce lawyer website to the family lawyer network, and preferred to call myself a marriage and family lawyer.
Changed the website and self-identity, I taught myself psychology knowledge, created some small forms, there are couples to my law firm consultation, I let them fill out the form first, two or three pages to write down, if less than 60 points, I will advise them not to worry. In 2011, I remember that the "Judicial Interpretation of the Marriage Law (III)" was about to be promulgated, and when the draft for comments was made, the social opinions were very enthusiastic, and I felt that the whole society was paying attention to this law, and at that time, I felt that marriage and family cases were gradually being discussed.
Divorce and social stability
Since 2004, my team and I have done more than 2,000 marriage and family cases. 2008 was the peak of my number of cases, and there were more than 60 cases in that year, basically either in court or on the way to court. In fact, since 2003, the divorce rate in our country has been on an upward trend. According to the Statistics of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the separation rate in 2020 reached 43.83%, and this proportion of 30% is already very high, and if it continues to be high, it will actually have an impact on social harmony and stability.
The divorce rate may seem like a cold statistic, but it can involve generations of a family or even a small society. Because the economic cost of marriage is rising now, the wealth of parents or generations must be put in, I have encountered the man's parents sold their house to their son to buy a marriage house, and then the son divorced, for various reasons, the house belongs to the woman. The old father came to us and said that he also had a share in the house, but where do you have a share in the law?
Illustration | Fan Wei
There is a greater impact, just like I am now handling the divorce case of the founder of a very famous Chinese clothing brand, which is also the longest case I have handled since I entered the industry, from 2015 to now, 6 years, the case has not yet ended. I represented the woman, who was also the founder of the company, but was kicked out of the company and is now fighting with her husband for property. Behind such a case, if the company goes bankrupt because of family conflicts, where will employees in their 40s and 50s go to find jobs? So sometimes we seem to be solving marriage problems, but in fact, we are also maintaining social harmony and stability.
There are many reasons for divorce, and the Supreme Court has also issued corresponding white papers and big data reports, all of which show that family trivia is the cause of divorce with the highest proportion, rather than cheating, violence and so on that we imagine. In the early years, violence was also one of the reasons for the relatively large proportion of divorce, and after the anti-domestic violence law came out in 2016, the number of domestic violence in the cases we represented was decreasing. Before the law was introduced, I represented some domestic violence-related divorce cases, and one that has been around for many years is still fresh in my memory.
I represented my wife, who started a business with the man, returned to the family after having children, and then the man liked to drink and came home in the middle of the night. When I was in a bad mood, I smashed the bottle, and slowly began to beat my client, even smoking with a belt and an ashtray. When I met the man at the beginning of the trial, he threatened to kill the woman's entire family, and when he said this, his very murderous gaze was particularly frightening, and I had only seen it on TV before. Once in an adjournment, the police and the judge were gone, when we signed the record, suddenly the man came over and grabbed the woman, a slap came over, and when another punch was ready to be smashed, the woman avoided, I quickly dragged the woman away and called the bailiff to come over. I drove the woman out, planning to take her to the train station to return to her hometown in Zhejiang, but she did not dare to live in Shanghai during the lawsuit.
Figure | Visual China
I was driving with my assistant, and the man called me directly and asked if his wife was in my car. My driver was shaking, fearing that a car would suddenly crash into us. Later, I changed directions and sent the woman to another station, but fortunately no one followed. As a result, the man still ran to my law firm and asked me to hand over his wife. I didn't dare to go to the law firm for a few days, and then I found the man's lawyer to coordinate, and finally got married or divorced, thrilling.
In fact, in today's divorce proceedings, there are very few divorces that are decided for the first time, and the court generally has to consider social stability and whether the relationship between husband and wife is really broken, and to have solid evidence.
Male, Female
When is it easiest to get divorced after marriage? What used to be called the seven-year itch is now basically 3-5 years. Because a traditional family, may have children within 3-5 years, just after giving birth to children is easy to be busy, at this time the role of women has changed, the less beautiful side of life is presented, it is easy to postpartum depression, mentality will also change, two people will inevitably have more contradictions. If you go through this period, wait for the child to go to kindergarten, after the run-in period, it will be better, the problem is that young people can't wait for the run-in period now.