L'inverno è lungo e appena cominciato (II)

"China's love cheats set for online exposure
Officials plan to put marriage records on the web to stem rising culture of secret mistresses and second wives

China's exploding wealth has created a culture of secret mistresses and second wives. Now officials are putting marriage records online so lovers and spouses can check for cheats.

State media has said Beijing and Shanghai will be among the first places to put marriage databases online this year. The plan is to have records for all of China online by 2015.

Bigamy is illegal in China and corruption inspectors with the ruling Communist party have said several officials have broken the law. That includes the former head of the National Bureau of Statistics, Qiu Xiaohua. He was called a "vile social and political influence" and expelled from the party in 2007.

China's growing economy over the past few decades has led to a high degree of mobility among cities and regions, creating what the Beijing-based lawyer Chen Wei described to China Daily as a "strangers' society".

One study of extramarital affairs in China, published in the US in 2005, said 20% of 1,240 married men surveyed in urban China and 3.9% of 1,275 married women admitted to having had an affair in the past 12 months.

The details of some secret romances have found their way online before a captivated public. In one of the most recent cases a county official in the central province of Hubei was detained last month on suspicion of killing his mistress, who was pregnant with twins, after she reportedly asked him to marry her or give her 2m yuan (£193,000).

The number of divorces in the country is rising. The civil affairs ministry has said 2.47 million couples split in 2009, up almost 9% from the year before."


Source:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/05/china-love-cheats-online-exposure