
China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’ - credo
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/world/asia/china-marriage-affair-mistress.html?_r=0
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ripitrust
I doubt that this will ever work in countries other than China because women
(and marriage) in other countries are mostly protected by law, while in china,
women are not so well protected. Also, culturally speaking, a divorced woman
is very hard to get marriage in China. While a divorced man is easy. In
society, People think that "divorce" somehow depreciated the value of a woman,
while "divorce" means nothing (sometimes positive thing) for a man. Also,
after marriage, Chinese woman will not focus mostly on work or career
promotion but rather on family, so in the long term, they are 1) financially
attached to the husband 2) emotionally attached to the husband. This makes
them want to "fix" the marriage rather than abandon it, even if the fix is
superficial and (maybe) temporary.

But as more and more young women (born after 80s and 90s) are married, this
kind of issue may be mitigating. Because young women tend to be much well-
educated and wealthy

~~~
branchless
surely the one child policy will give women an upper hand in the coming 20
years?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/File:China_Sex_By_Age_2010_census.png)

~~~
Isofarro
All things being equal, yes women would have the upper hand.

But cultural norms warp things a little more. The cultural tendency is for a
man to marry down, and a women marry up in social level terms.

Which means there's a layer of women near the top who can't find a husband.
Particularly in professional careers. And the lowest social rung of men have
no women to marry down.

This asymmetry means there's a band of powerful and successful women who don't
normally find husbands. They become China's "leftover women", who have
basically given up on the idea of marriage beyond the age of 27. One recent
solution here is these women look abroad for suitable husbands. Despite being
negged annually, the social stigma of not marrying up takes many options away
from women.

~~~
colmvp
I always find it strange how we make it seem like mate criteria is sacrosanct
and beyond critique.

I get that norms are strong. But in tech, we are constantly asked to question
norms all the time and at times, deliberately counterbalance them. Surely we
should also question social norms that inform our thinking in finding a mate?
Especially if the person is having trouble finding someone suitable.

If I were to say to you I had trouble finding a woman, I don't think people
here would say, "hey you should look at dating someone overseas." I think
people might suggest opening my scope to other ethnicities/body types/meeting
opportunities.

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sanxiyn
The key paragraph, in my opinion:

"One response to marital infidelity is divorce. But divorce can be costly,
especially for women. Aside from the social stigma that falls more heavily on
women, family property and finances in China tend to be registered in the
husband's name. A divorced woman can find herself homeless, adding to the
pressure of taking measures to save the marriage."

~~~
chii
it's interesting that in the west, divorce usually means the women gets half
the networth of the man, in which case, it's the man who normally don't want
to divorce.

~~~
ajmurmann
Unless the wife has higher income in which case the husband benefits. Or maybe
they even earn similar incomes...

~~~
dpark
Yeah. I'm not sure what decade these people are living in. If you're worried
about marriage because you think your wife is going to divorce you and take
half your money, you could choose a spouse with her own source of good income.

~~~
lectrick
That limits your choices quite a bit. For example there are a large number of
attractive women with terrible incomes and/or no savings, for which "scoring a
successful man" may be a "valid" mating strategy

~~~
dpark
If you select someone as your mate who is mostly interested in you for your
money, then you should expect that they will take a big chunk of your money if
you divorce. I don't mean this in a "you deserve it" kind of way, but in a
"this is the relationship you agreed to" way.

If your mate is with you for your money and you are with them for their youth
and looks, then assuming you stay with them long enough that after a divorce
much of their youth and good looks are gone, why shouldn't they get some of
your money? You got _their_ most valuable assets.

~~~
DefaultUserHN
You're assuming that only gold diggers will take half your money when they
divorce you.

But that's not true. Under United States laws, all women will take half your
money when they divorce you. Doesn't matter that they're gold diggers or not.

And also, most women marries up (marry a guy who makes more than her), not
down.

~~~
dpark
I'm not assuming anything. If you are worried about your spouse taking "your
money", then don't marry someone who isn't bringing in a similar amount of
money. It's not complex.

This whining about women taking "your money" in a divorce is absurd. Get a
prenup or marry someone with as much or more money. If you marry someone with
less money (i.e. someone "marrying up") then you are knowingly "marrying
down". Don't whine about fairness. This isn't a problem with the courts being
"unfair" so much as a problem with people being petty.

~~~
DefaultUserHN
I agree.

She doesn't have to be a gold digger to take half your money because the laws
still applies regardless of her gold-digging status.

The proper way to handle this is to marry some who makes the same or more than
you.

~~~
dpark
Or just accept that in a divorce, things will be split more or less equally in
the absence of a prenup.

I make more than my wife. If we got divorced, her getting half the assets
would not be the biggest problem.

~~~
DefaultUserHN
It's up to each person to decide what they find acceptable and act
accordingly.

------
shubhamjain
Another point that is missing here is, in many cultures, women are reluctant
to consider any fault in their husbands. Cheating? Fault of the mistress.
Domestic violence? Fault of herself. Coming from India, I have seen this
happening countless times where women would never see anything wrong with
their spouse even in worst cases.

This may seem horrifying but it is often a result when women are brought up to
be good obeying wives, be great mothers and religiously do household duties.

------
rdslw
Hard to believe this is something more than 'wannabe business PR' plus movie
PR.

China female/male ratio is heavily unbalanced. There is a LOT men on market
for women to choose. Also almost no foreign woman marry chinese man, on the
contrary to the chinese women marrying a lot of foreigners.

1+2 means china is a market where men are at bad position and women has plenty
of fish to choose from. Opposite situation which would create such services as
described in the article.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women_of_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_women_of_China)

According to 2012 figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s sex
ratio at birth (the number of boys born for every 100 girls) was as high as
118.

~~~
ripitrust
You are in fact very right, but there is one critical issue here. If we are
talking about marriage. Culturally there is a "lifespan" of value to both
genders. A Man's valuable lifespan can be well over 20 years, from age 20 all
the way to age 40.While a woman's valuable lifespan maybe only less than 10
years, from 20 to 30.

This is because of the "stake" people are seeking when looking for a marriage
between genders. Women are seeking wealth, social status, personality and
whatever it may take to maintain a stable marriage ( family). While men, in
most cases, are looking for prettiness, good-looking or whatever superficial.
This kind of value lifespan and marriage purpose mismatch is the whole problem
of marriage issues in China.

A divorced, less pretty (compare to those in 20s), mid-aged woman is very hard
to find another marriage. Even if they did not even marry before, it is still
hard for them. A lot of women in China who are well-educated, well-paid, in
their 30s still have problems in finding partners (This is what Chinese
society called sheng nu, or "women that left
behind":[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_nu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_nu)).

Statistically speaking, women are indeed more than men, but the mating process
is not statistic.

~~~
cinquemb
> _Statistically speaking, women are indeed more than men, but the mating
> process is not statistic._

Now it would be fascinating if people could generate probability distributions
that accurately describe social-economic systems/relationships like what I
would say that you accurately describe quantitatively.

------
Illniyar
What's the point though? Wouldn't the husband just end up with a different
mistress?

I mean they do not resolve the problems in the marriage that led to the
situation. Do these women believe it's a one time thing? or that that specific
mistress is special?

~~~
ctvo
The distinction is probably lost, but a mistress is someone the husband has
emotional feelings for (and what scares the wives is their ability to
manipulate their husbands). It takes time to find someone like that and build
up a new side relationship. It could happen again, but they're hoping not
quickly.

This is different from sleeping with escorts and other transactional women,
which a lot of wives are comfortable with and attribute it to the way business
works (taking clients out drinking, etc.).

~~~
ajmurmann
Escorts are considered part of how business is done in China?

~~~
ctvo
Not all the time, but common enough that no one is shocked and it's not a
secret that business men engage in these activities.

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matt_wulfeck
> Weiqing eventually ended the affair, she said, by persuading the other woman
> to take a higher-paying job in another city. “I don’t care how that woman is
> living now,’’ Ms. Wang said. “I just feel relieved that my husband is
> back.’’

This makes me sad because the issue is not "fixed", it's just lost one of its
symptoms.

If you speak to enough people who have been married for a "long time" you
realize they have been through some really hard stuff. It takes an extreme
amount of work and forgiveness from both sides. I can't picture success with
just one party being interested in staying together.

------
sverige
But how will this work in, say, LA or New York? A friend of mine in NYC had a
lovely wife who divorced him after discovering his serial philandering. He
said there were young women throwing themselves at him all the time. (He's
wealthy.)

The stigma isn't as strong here as it is in China, either. And he ended up
paying for the divorce.

On the other hand, she's not as well off financially as she had been. It was
emotionally difficult for her as well, but the root of that problem was deeper
than the symptom.

Not sure that this service would work here.

~~~
wyclif
I doubt it would work in the US, too. Not only is the stigma against divorce
now almost non-existent, we have no-fault divorce law. And people marry and
divorce at a higher rate than ever before. It's easy come, easy go. And I
would say that our system has a lot of bad effects, too: broken homes and
single-parent childrearing are crippling our social structure.

~~~
sgk284
The divorce rate peaked in the 80s and has been declining ever since in the
States.

Here's the last 15 years, but can't find the full data set right now:
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm)

~~~
gakada
It's amusing that these statistics are on the CDC website.

~~~
mmmBacon
What's amusing about that? Divorce can be devastating to a person's physical
and mental health as can many other social problems. So it seems logical to me
that the CDC tracks this.

~~~
lectrick
Similar to Global Thermonuclear War in the movie WarGames, the only winning
move may soon simply be not to play :O

------
jogofogo
.

~~~
venomsnake
Not that sure about that. For every vagina there has to be corresponding dick
for the whole cheating thing to work. So I guess cheaters are roughly equal
between sexes.

~~~
coldtea
> _So I guess cheaters are roughly equal between sexes._

For it to be cheating you need to be married (or in an exclusive relationship)
in the first place. If the other party is not, then they're not cheating
anyone themselves.

So, if it mostly happens between married men and unmarried women, for example,
cheaters don't have to be "roughly equal".

~~~
venomsnake
And what are the unmarried men doing in the meantime?

~~~
coldtea
Well, for one they can't cheat their wives, because they don't have any.

As for cheating with married women, in China woman's infidelity is much lower
than that of married men infidelity.

"In a representative sample of urban Chinese – 3.9% of married women and 20.6%
of married men reported to have the experience of extramarital sex in the past
year".

So just because each dick needs a corresponding vagina (and vice versa)
doesn't mean that infidelity between sexes is equal. There are other factors
in play too.

------
kazinator
Laugh; "mistress disspelling" is a time-consuming and expensive remedy which
focuses on the _symptom_ of the infidelity. After weeks and months of
manipulating the mistress, assuming it works, the husband may just find
another one. Back to square one.

What if he already has several? Do you hire three counsellors with three
strategies to dispel all of them? That's going to get really expensive, fast.

