| |
 |
Can fidelity be secured by notification?
|
Huang Naili
CHOCOLATE and flowers for your wife on Valentine's Day? Romantic but boring. A woman in Zhijiang City, Hubei Province got a very exciting gift on this year's Valentine's Day. In response to her requests, her husband promised, in a written declaration, to give up his share of their common property if they should happen to divorce because of him having an extramarital affair. What's more, the city's notary office notarized the declaration. Can a piece of paper really help people to protect their marriages?
Luo Lilian, Shenzhen Notary Office
A personal declaration isn't valid under our law, whereas in Hong Kong it's legal. Furthermore, in HK you can be punished for telling a lie, but that's not the case in China.
It's not realistic to use economic factors to safeguard a relationship. And if the two sides consider it necessary to hold each other responsible by signing an agreement, this agreement should apply to both sides. The fidelity notification in Zhijiang seems to me to only restrain the husband, it's quite unfair. My question is, what if the wife makes a mistake? We should point out that no one is above the law, although in China, women are usually the victims of infidelity.
I should say that what Zhijiang Notary Office has done is a great leap forward, although here in Shenzhen we are not quite ready for that leap. I'm also not sure what this will bring to our society. A problem is there are a lot of different notary offices that have sprang up around us. A husband who has his fidelity notified then may well take the family's deed to his “ernai” (concubine) and in another notary office also promise to give her a share.
Shen Feng, Shenzhen Ling'ao Nuclear Power Plant
If you fail to remind yourself of your obligations in a marriage, you could slip up and fall in love again, destroying your family. So we of course need something else to help us, for example, buying insurance for fidelity, in that case you can at least get a bit of economic compensation.
To promise fidelity in a marriage or to buy insurance for love, both are ways to sign a contract that effectively restrains the two parties, to underline the importance of moral integrity, and to ensure the interests of the innocent victim.
The husband in Zhijiang is responsible enough to promise his future fidelity and should be encouraged. And I hope that the “love insurance”, which is currently popular in Britain, soon becomes available here to help protect marriage in an ever-changing modern society.
Chen Jing, Shenzhen Kangning Hospital
Fidelity notification is like the last straw for a drowning person.
Self-discipline in safeguarding your marriage should be reiterated. Fidelity, the foundation of a marriage, must be a conscientious, spontaneous and lofty act.
To seek outside discipline is a sad thing for the married. Who wants the kind of marriage that has to be maintained by a notification?
A family in crisis is like a broken iron bucket, if the bottom cannot be fixed, there is no use in binding the bucket with more hoops.
The fidelity notification is just another form of a nuptial financial agreement. But you can't just penalize the crime of a changing heart. If one partner has decided to abandon the family, what's the use of asking him or her to make a dozen declarations of fidelity.
The notification case in Zhijiang seems to be benefiting the wife. But a careful analysis will reveal that a notification paper alone can't bring peace to the wife. If the husband has an affair, he could do his utmost to keep his infidelity a secret.
|
|
|
|
