1 YANG YOURONG’s wife kicks him as they walk upstairs and he falls back a few steps, then follows again at a distance up to the cramped offices of a district-government bureau handling divorces in Chongqing, a region in the south-east. After more than 20 years of marriage, Mr Yang’s wife has had several affairs; she is “quick tempered”, he says (she had slapped him earlier, he claims). At the bureau, divorce takes half an hour andcosts 9 yuan ($1.40). It is administered a few steps away from where other couples get married and take celebratory photographs. Mr Yang and his wife have second thoughts, however; they return home, still arguing. Most couples hesitate less.
杨友荣（音译）的妻子在他们一同走上楼梯时踢了他一脚，他退后了几步，然后依然离着一段距离跟着他的妻子来到了重庆（中国西南部）当地处理离婚的地区政府部门。在结婚
20
多年里，杨先生的妻子曾多次出轨。她是个“急性子”，杨先生说（他称他妻子早前曾经扇了他一巴掌）。在政府部门里，离婚程序需要时长半小时，花费
9
元（大约
1.4
美元）。处理离婚的地方距离其他夫妻结婚以及拍结婚照的地方只有几步远。但是，杨先生及其妻子也对离婚仍有过迟疑。他们回到家，但依然争吵不断。然而大多数夫妇对此则不会这么犹豫。
2 Divorce rates are rising quickly across China. This is a remarkable transformation in a society where for centuries marriage was universal and mostly permanent (though convention permitted men to take concubines). Under Communist rule, traditional values have retained a strong influence over family relationships: during much of the Mao era, divorce was very unusual. It became more common in the 1980s, but a marriage law adopted in 1994 still required a reference from an employer or community leader. Not until 2003 were restrictions removed.
中国各地的离婚率都在快速上升。对于一个几个世纪以来婚姻都是最普遍、最长久人际关系的社会来说（尽管社会习俗允许男人纳妾），这是一个巨大的转变。在共产党的统治下，传统观念对家庭关系依然保有重要影响：在毛泽东时代的大多数时候，离婚时极其罕见的。离婚在
20
世纪
80
年代开始变得普遍起来，但
1994
年开始实施的婚姻法依然需要雇主或者社区领导开具的证明文件才能办理离婚。该规定一直到
2003
年才被废除。
3 The trend reflects profound economic and social change. In the past 35 years, the biggest internal migration experienced by any country in human history has been tearing families apart. Traditional values have been giving way to more liberal ones. Women are becoming better educated, and more aware of their marital rights (they now initiate over halfof all divorce cases). Greater affluence has made it easier for many people to contemplate living alone—no longer is there such an incentive to stay married in order to pool resources.
这一趋势反映出深刻的经济层面和社会方面的变化。在过去的
35
年里，中国发生了人类历史上所有国家中所出现最大的国内移民潮，而这将中国的家庭撕扯开。传统观念已经逐渐被更为自由的观念所取代。女性受教育程度越来越高，同时也更加了解婚姻中她们的权利（现在有超过半数的离婚申请都是由女性提出的）。物质财富的增长让许多人更容易思考独居的问题——再也没有因为调集资源而结婚的需要。
4 As long as both sides agree on terms, China is now among the easiest and cheapest places in the world to get adivorce. In many Western countries, including Britain, couples must separate for a period before dissolving a marriage; China has no such constraints. In 2014, the latest year for which such data exist, about 3.6m couples split up—more than double the number a decade earlier (they received a red certificate, pictured, to prove it). The divorce rate—the number of cases per thousand people—also doubled in that period. It now stands at 2.7, well abovethe rate in most of Europe and approaching that of America, the most divorce-prone Western country. Chongqing’s rate, 4.4, is higherthan America’s.
只有双方都同意其中的条款，中国的离婚程序现在是世界上最简单、最低价的。在包括英国在内的许多西方国家，夫妻在离婚前需要分居一段时间，而在中国就没有这样的限制。
2014
年的数据是现存最新的，其中显示约有
360
万对夫妇办理离婚手续——是十年前的两倍还多（他们会得到如图所示的证件来证明离婚的生效）。离婚率——每千人中离婚个案数——在同一时期同样也翻了一番。现在中国的离婚率达
2.7
，比欧洲大多数国家都高得多，正在逐渐接近美国这个离婚率最高的西方国家。而重庆地区的离婚率高达
4.4
，比美国都要高。
5 Helped by the huge movement of people from the countryside into cities, and the rapid spread of social media, the availability of potential mates has grown with astonishing speed, both geographically and virtually. But many migrants marry in their home villages and often live apart from their spouses for lengthy periods. This has contributed to a big increase in extra marital liaisons. Married people previously had limited opportunities to meet members of the opposite sex in social situations, according to research by Li Xiaomin of Henan University.Peng Xiaobo, a divorce lawyer in Chongqing, reckons 60-70% of his clients have had affairs.
在农村大量人口进入城市的和快节奏社交媒体的出现，使得结婚对象的数量不论是地理上还是实质上都以令人惊讶的速度增长着。但许多外来人口在家乡村庄中结婚，经常和他们的配偶长时间地分居，这使得婚外恋情的大量出现。根据河南大学李晓敏（音译）的研究表明了，过去已婚人士在社会情景中接触异性机会很有限。一位重庆的离婚律师彭小波（音译）认为他的客户中
60%
到
70%
都有过婚外情。
6 Such behaviour has led to much soul-searching. The notion that “chopsticks come in pairs” is still prevalent; propaganda posters preach Confucian-style family virtues using pictures of happy, multi-generation families. (President Xi Jinping is on his second marriage but this is rarely mentioned.) Many commentators in the official media talk of separation as a sign of moral failure; they fret that it signifies the decline of marriage, and of family as a social unit—a threat, as they see it, to social stability and even a cause of crime. The spread of “Western values”is of ten blamed.
这样的行为让人进行深刻的自我反省。“筷子总是成双的”这样的观念依然盛行；宣传海报用多代同堂的幸福家庭来宣扬孔儒式的家庭观念。（习近平主席现在也是第二次婚姻，但这件事却很少被提及。）许多官方媒体的评论人士将离婚成为道德失败的一种象征，他们担心离婚意味着婚姻和家庭作为一个社会单位的衰落——他们将这看做对社会稳定甚至是导向犯罪的威胁。“西方观念”的传播常常被认为是罪魁祸首。
7 But marriage is not losing its lustre. In most countries, rising divorce rates coincide with more births out of wedlock and a fall in marriage rates. China bucks both these trends. Remarriage is common too. The Chinese have not fallen out of love with marriage—only with each other.
但婚姻也没有失去它的意义。在大多数国家，离婚率的上升伴随着已婚夫妇生育率的上升和结婚率的下降。中国却在这两件事上逆势而去，因为重婚同样也是很普遍的现象。中国人没有对结婚不再热衷，只是对曾经相恋的彼此不再爱恋。
8 It is tradition itself that is partly to blame for rising divorce rates. China’s legal marriage age for men, 22, is the highest in the world. But conservative attitudes to premarital relationships result in Chinese youths having fewer of them than their counterparts in the West (they are urged to concentrate on their studies and careers, rather than socialise or explore). Living together before marriage is still rare, although that is changing among educated youngsters. People still face social pressure to marry in their 20s. Their inexperience makes it more than usually difficult for them to select a good partner.
离婚率上升应该有部分归因于传统观念本身。中国男性法定结婚的年龄为
22
，是全球最高。但对婚前关系的保守态度导致中国青年比起西方同龄人在这方面经验很少（他们被敦促要投入到他们的学习当中，而不是社交或者是发展人际关系）。尽管对于受教育程度高的年轻人来说正在逐渐改变，婚前同居依然很罕见。人们依然面临着来自社会催促
20
多岁结婚的压力。他们的经验不足使得他们常常难以为自己选择一个好的伴侣。
9 Couples’ ageing relatives are part of the problem too. Yan Yunxiang of the University of California, Los Angeles, says “parent-driven divorce” is becoming more common. As a result of China’s one-child-per-couple policy (recently changed to a two-child one), many people have no siblings to share the burden of looking after parents and grandparents.Thus couples often find themselves living with, or being watched over by, several—often contending—elders. Mr Yan says the older ones’ interference fuelsconjugal conflict. Sometimes parents urge their children to divorce their partners as a way to deal with rifts.
夫妻间逐渐成熟的关系也是问题所在。位于洛杉矶的加州大学的闫元祥（音译）称“父母逼迫的离婚”越来越普遍。在中国独生子女政策（最近变成了二孩政策）的影响下，许多人没有兄弟姐妹来分担照顾父母和祖父母的负担。因此许多夫妻常常与几位老人住在同一屋檐下，常常被他们监视——这在社会引起了争论。闫先生说老人们的干预加剧了已婚夫妇的冲突。有的时候父母督促他们的子女与其伴侣离婚来处理他们之间关系的裂痕。
