China’s proposed measures to ease marriage registration while making divorces harder to get have provoked a wave of public backlash, a reflection of the challenges facing the world’s No 2 economy in arresting a sharp drop in births.

Chinese authorities will no longer require couples filing for marriage to provide their hukou, or household registration, as part of draft changes to existing regulations. The proposed amendment also added a 30-day cooling-off period for those seeking a divorce, a rule already enacted in 2021 that made it more difficult to exit a marriage. 

Chinese media outlets have touted the changes as an effort to promote “marital freedom”, since they could potentially reduce intervention by the family members while also making divorce decisions more “rational”. 

But the contrast has sparked public outcry on social media, with netizens questioning the intention of the authorities and expressing concerns about bigamy or identity cheating in marriages. 

“Does the cooling-off period for divorce count as marital freedom?” said one comment on X-like Weibo.com, which had over 22,000 likes. 

The discussions briefly topped Weibo’s trending list on Friday morning, with more than 100 million views. “Where is my right to get divorced?” another user asked, garnering over 21,000 likes. 

China’s leadership has been struggling to arrest a steady drop in new births, despite measures to scrap birth-control policies and boost fertility rates, as the younger generation rethinks life priorities. 

While the push to make it more difficult for couples to break up has helped to reduce the divorce rate, far fewer people are now entering marriage. Only 3.43 million couples got hitched in the first half of this year, official statistics showed, the lowest since 1980, according to Shanghai-based news site The Paper.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs began to seek public comments on the proposed revisions to marriage and divorce procedures this week until Sept 11. 

Original copies of household registration have for decades been a mandatory document and used as a way to prevent bigamy, with couples required to file for marriage where their hukous have been issued. 

The proposed changes would allow people to get married anywhere in the country by providing just their identity cards and declarations confirming they are eligible to marry. 

The Paper said the hukou exemption could hand young people autonomy over marriage decisions. It also holds out the potential of solving the practice of hefty “bride prices”, a tradition that requires the groom-to-be to present betrothal gifts to his fiancee’s family, which authorities have identified as an obstacle to boosting the birth rate.

  - Bloomberg