By
The Associated Press
BEIJING - After heated debate, China's legislature has passed sweeping revisions to the nation's marriage law to curb extramarital affairs and spousal abuse, state media said yesterday.
The revisions, passed almost unanimously by senior legislators Saturday, ban unfaithful spouses from living with their lovers. They also empower victims of domestic violence to seek official protection and police punishment for abusers.
State media expressed hope that the changes would help stabilize Chinese marriages and curb wife-beating.
"Bigamy and keeping concubines by the country's new rich are eroding social morality," the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. "(Communist) party and government officials involved have also tarnished the image of the government."
The revisions to the marriage law, the first law drafted by communist leaders after they took power in 1949 and last revised in 1980, were one of the most openly discussed legal issues in recent years in a China that carefully restricts public debate.
China's wholly state-run media frequently aired opposing views from experts and legislators divided over how to curb affairs and punish unfaithful spouses, particularly men who keep mistresses. The legislature in January took the unusual step of publishing a draft of the hotly debated law to elicit public comment.
Attention focused on the supposedly corrosive effect of extramarital affairs on families and society and in corrupting government officials and frustrating government family-planning policies. State media reported that 95 percent of people accused of economic crimes in southern Guangdong province, one of China's wealthiest, supported at least one extramarital lover.
The new law empowers aggrieved spouses to divorce and seek damages from unfaithful partners who live with their lovers. In divorce cases, victims of spousal abuse can also sue for damages.
Xinhua said the law's provisions on domestic violence were aimed at preventing men from "beating their wife behind closed doors."
Domestic violence causes 60 percent of divorces in China and has been reported in 30 percent of Chinese families, it said. State media have given extensive coverage to the problem, including reports about men attacking and disfiguring their wives with acid.
Prosperity, mobility and looser social controls borne of market reforms have also contributed to soaring divorce rates. Xinhua said 1.2 million couples divorced last year, an increase of 51 percent over a decade ago.
"The phenomenon of 'keeping of second wives' is threatening our country's marriage and family system of one husband with one wife," it said.
Conservatives blame greater sexual freedoms, particularly the taking of mistresses. Conservative legal experts had sought strong measures to punish adultery, including a provision that would have allowed a wronged spouse to call in police to punish a wayward partner and his or her extramarital lover.
