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Landmark ruling: Chinese court orders man to pay ex-wife for housework
The Beijing court said the compensation awarded to the woman was for “unpaid labour” she did during the time the couple were married. This was the first such decision by a court in China, state media reports said, adding that the verdict raised questions about the status of women in Chinese families and unrecognised domestic work.
A Beijing divorce court has ordered a man to pay 50,000 yuan ($7,700) to his ex-wife for household work she did during their marriage, a landmark decision that has triggered millions of threads of discussion on Chinese social media.
The Beijing court said the compensation awarded to the woman was for “unpaid labour” she did during the time the couple were married.
This was the first such decision by a court in China, state media reports said, adding that the verdict raised questions about the status of women in Chinese families and unrecognised domestic work.
According to court records, the man identified by his surname Chen had filed for divorce last year from his wife, surnamed Wang, after getting married in 2015.
Wang was reluctant to divorce at first, but later requested financial compensation with her lawyer arguing that the husband did no housework or took care of responsibilities related to their son.
The court divided the couple’s common property equally and ruled that Wang was legally divorced from her husband Chen and that he had to pay the compensation to Wang.
Feng Miao, the judge, said the decision was made according to Article 1088 of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China; the new civil code came into effect last year.
The article, as quoted by state media stipulates: “Where one spouse is burdened with additional duties for raising children, looking after the elderly, or assisting the other spouse in his/her work, the said spouse has the right to request for compensation upon divorce against the other party, and the other party shall make due compensation.”
The landmark judgement went viral on Chinese social media platforms under the hashtag “Full-time wife gets 50,000-yuan compensation for housework”. As of Wednesday, the post had been viewed and shared more than 500 million times.
Some netizens wondered how to calculate the value of house work, while others said 50,000 yuan was too little.
According to the news website SixthTone, China’s divorce rates have been continuously increasing since 2003.
In 2019, over 4.7 million couples officially divorced with women being the ones who proposed divorce in 74% of such cases, the report said, adding that experts attribute this to growing independence among women and shifting attitudes about marriage.
