Marriage rules were to be eased |
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/08/19 11:16 Shanghai Daily |
Chinese couples planning to get married may soon do so without a letter from their em-ployers testifying to their single status nor going through a mandatory health examination, according to a regulation issued by the State Council yesterday. The new regulation, to take effect on October 1, consists of six chapters, or 22 items, which will annul the old version that has been in effect for nine years. An adult male and female will be able to marry each other legally by only providing their ID cards and residence documents, and by signing a statement that they are single and not related, the new regulation states. For the past several decades, government marriage offices required people to show letters provided by their employers to guarantee that they were qualified for marriage. The new regulation says that people may take a health ex-amination before marriage, but will not be obligatory to do so. The marriage will be invalidated if one of the partners is shown to have a medical condition which under the law would disqualify a marriage, such as leprosy or insanity. One of the partners may apply for an annulment if the other suffers from such a disease before marriage and does not recover. The new rules stress that couples without legal registra-tion will not have their rights and interests protected by the law. Couples will receive divorce certificates at once if they both agree to get divorced and settle amicably their property, any debts and care of any children. The number of Chinese regis-tering for marriage decreased from 8.916 million couples in 1998 to 7.86 million last year. |
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