Getting
a divorce is never easy for anyone involved, but it is particularly
difficult at the Yibin People’s Court, in China’s Sichuan Province,
where one magistrate recently implemented a divorce exam that both the
husband and the wife must fail in order for their divorce application to
be approved.
a divorce is never easy for anyone involved, but it is particularly
difficult at the Yibin People’s Court, in China’s Sichuan Province,
where one magistrate recently implemented a divorce exam that both the
husband and the wife must fail in order for their divorce application to
be approved.
The divorce exam is the brainchild of Wang Shiyu, a judge at the
People’s Court of Yibin County, who, after noticing that divorces
accounted for an alarmingly large percentage of the court’s cases,
decided to do something about it. His intention was to make couples
think twice before ending their marriage, and also give them an
opportunity to reminisce the good times they had together. So he came up
with a series of questions for both husband and wife, which they must
answer separately. If they score under 60, Wang approves their divorce
application, if not, well, they have to keep working on their marriage,
whether they like it or not.
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“Our
intention is to know the real marriage status of the couple involved.
They might also examine themselves and give consideration to the other
half. After recalling bits and pieces of their marriage, they will be
more rational towards it,” judge Wang said.
intention is to know the real marriage status of the couple involved.
They might also examine themselves and give consideration to the other
half. After recalling bits and pieces of their marriage, they will be
more rational towards it,” judge Wang said.
“As a county with a population of more than a million, the court in
Yibin receives hundreds of cases each year, with half of them being
domestic ones. Divorce cases account for a large percentage. As I also
have a family and a child, when I’m dealing with these cases, I don’t
want to see couples getting divorced in haste,” the magistrate added.
The
written exam consists of three parts – fill in the blanks’, ‘short
question’ and ‘statements’ – with questions covering basic information
like family members’ birthdays, favorite foods, date of the couple’s
anniversary, as well as more in-depth ones like ” What responsibility
did you take up in this family?”, “What did you do good and what did you
do bad?”, “What is marriage and family to you?”.
written exam consists of three parts – fill in the blanks’, ‘short
question’ and ‘statements’ – with questions covering basic information
like family members’ birthdays, favorite foods, date of the couple’s
anniversary, as well as more in-depth ones like ” What responsibility
did you take up in this family?”, “What did you do good and what did you
do bad?”, “What is marriage and family to you?”.
After
both the husband and wife turn in their papers, the judge reads their
answers and scores them. Here’s the catch, though – no one knows the
criteria by which the papers are scored, and he refuses to reveal them.
both the husband and wife turn in their papers, the judge reads their
answers and scores them. Here’s the catch, though – no one knows the
criteria by which the papers are scored, and he refuses to reveal them.
One of the first couple to go through Wang Shiyu’s divorce exam, on
September 14, scored 80 and 86 respectively. Those were considered high
scores, so the judge denied their divorce application, advising them to
keep working on their marriage. Wang said that the husband had a
gambling problem and was disrespectful to his wife, but because they had
scored so well on the test, he decided that their marriage was not
beyond saving.
News regarding the divorce exam recently went viral on Chinese social
media, and got mixed responses from the public. While some applauded
Wang’s intention to prevent couples from divorcing on the spur of the
moment, while others argued that divorce was a personal matter, and that
magistrates were better of focusing on other things, like alimony,
custody of any children.
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