a landmark case in china a man has been
ordered to compensate his wife for the
housework she did during their marriage
the ruling by court in beijing is the
first of its kind
following the introduction of a new
marriage law in china now the woman will
receive the equivalent of 7
700 for five years worth of work
the case generating significant online
debate about the value of domestic work
bbc's kerry allen told us what the
reaction has been like on weibo
china's equivalent of twitter well the
majority of people actually
think that this is not a lot of money i
mean 50 000 um which is the local
uh currency is roughly about a year's
worth of somebody's salary or less than
a year's salary
and this woman's going to be giving it 2
000 u.n
uh per month which again is not
sufficient
um as a salary when she's not been
working for a long period of time
people do think as well that
there is an expectation in china that
when you break up with somebody
um that you should be compensated there
has been a trend now in china for a
number of years of what are known as
breakup fees
so when two people break up compensation
is normally given from the boyfriend to
his girlfriend
for effectively wasting her time
and what are the circumstances of this
particular divorce kerry
well the couple have been together for
five years and
he was actually the one who filed for
divorce back in 2020 last year
and what happened was his ex-wife then
decided to
take advantage of this civil code that
kicked in at the beginning of this year
which allows her to seek compensation
for
child care and household work and so
it's a it's a very new case it's a very
new
procedure in chinese courts um and yes
she was successful so it is seen as a
landmark case
and does this new law mean that marriage
is being talked about quite a lot on
social media
it yes but it has been for a while now
in china
i mean there's a huge marriage there's a
huge gender gap in china there are tens
of millions
more men than there are women so a lot
of people just don't want to get married
anyway and this
has the government has concerns about
this because uh this could lead to a
stalling birth rate
so it's been trying to do a lot to try
and get couples together
to uh to stay married and not to get
divorced so this is partly why this
civil code is
is a big thing for china carrie ellen
there