Chinese not such an inscrutable civilization, after all
ARTICLE: "Breaking Up Is Easy To Do: In China, the hot new trend is 'flash divorce,' as women loose their cheating husbands," by Hannah Beech, Time, 6 November 2006, p. 51.This one starts like a novel:
Until last year, Chen Hong considered divorce an exotic American concept, as far removed from her life in Shanghai as gastric-bypass surgery or an addiction to reality-TV shows. Then she checked out her husband's cell-phone records...Confucian tradition says to women they should treat their husbands like Gods. Not long ago, the CCP still considered divorce illegal.
Then globalization came to town, and divorces rise by 2/3rds since 2000.
Globalization empowers women, pure and simple, and the effects are the same the world over, blowing Huntington's civilizational distinctions right out of the water.
Money comes to China with globalization, so men indulge their inner desire for concubines (so Chinese). Wives get pissed and initiate the overwhelming majority of divorces.
So guess what follows?
China's hottest new legal field: divorce lawyers.
Seems like Shanghai Law isn't that different from "L.A. Law."
Comments
There's another hot new legal field in China as well: pre-nuptial (pre-nups) agreements. Must be in Chinese and done right, but the courts there do tend to enforce them.
Posted by: China Law Blog | November 6, 2006 1:42 AM
Oh, sooo much similar to South Korea in that regard.
Posted by: Jeremy | November 6, 2006 3:10 AM
This just on Reuters - Chinese family planning officials have decided wife swapping is a bad thing - reversing the current trend encouraged by
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Li Yinhe, a sociologist who last year said that wife-swapping was a "normal kind of entertainment" and that "all couples should have the right to do it."
'
Posted by: Eric Hansen | November 6, 2006 11:30 AM
Just doing a dive into the past and a thought occurs, the sexual imbalance in the PRC probably will accelerate female empowerment. Limited supply of women means that their price rises. In human terms, the amount of abuse you can get away with is a figure that drops for men and rises for women in a women shortage situation.
Posted by: TM Lutas | November 9, 2006 2:24 AM