China City Has More People Divorcing After Being Quarantined Together For Too Long

By
George Yang
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I know what you’re thinking: the headline doesn’t make sense.

Well, then you probably aren’t married, or are still in the honeymoon stage.

So, what the heck happened? Why are more people divorcing?

China City Has More People Divorcing After Being Quarantined For Too Long Together

You’d have probably known by now that China now has COVID-19 under control. Since 13 March 2020, the number of imported cases there has been more than community spread in the country.

It’s so goody that they’re now sending help to other countries, compared to a month ago when countries (including Singapore) were sending help to them.

Everything’s goody there now, right?

Not really.

At least not in Xi’an, capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

During the China lockdown, many offices, including marriage registration offices, were closed. That’s understandable, and on 1 March 2020, as COVID-19 left the country for Europe, the marriage registration offices were reopened.

With so many people staying at home, you’d have thought that no one’s falling in love and therefore there’s no spike in marriage registration.

You’re right.

Conversely, there is a spike in divorce requests.

Wait, what?

Image: mrwgifs.com

According to an official, “We started receiving some telephone appointments on March 2, and more appointments came in in the next future days.”

Pretty sure they were marriage appointment but no: they were for divorce appointments.

It got so bad that on the fourth day, the divorce appointment has hit its limit.

The official, Wang, had two theories:

“As a result of the epidemic, many couples have been bound with each other at home for over a month, which evoked the underlying conflicts, adding that the office had been closed for a month, therefore the office has seen an acutely increasing divorce appointment…Usually the office would see a wave of divorcement after Spring Festival (Chinese New Year in China) and the college entrance examination.”

In other words, there could be two reasons:

  • Married couples have to stay home together 24 hours a day, which led to more conflicts
  • Many people had wanted to divorce in the first place but couldn’t do so due to the closure

I prefer to think that it’s the second reason. After all, he did mention that more people divorce after Chinese New Year, and that was when the shutdown started.

Another official suggested that these conflicts might have caused people to make impulsive decisions, because some people cancelled their divorce appointments.

So if you think the COVID-19 merely affected people’s health and the economy, you’re wrong.

That nasty bugs can stain relationships, too.

Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:

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George Yang
Email: [email protected]