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Chinese Women Empowered by Divorce

Date: 2006-10-04

The divorce rate in China has been on the increase every year since the 1990s. Many insightful people at the time wrote about the abuse and damage associated with divorce, including some who even stressed avoiding the risk of it becoming fashionable, and I have the memory from the early 1950s of this very thing happening.

China's first marriage law was promulgated in 1950 in opposition to bigamy and concubinage and was propagandized nationally. Polygamy was inherited from pre-1949 China but could not be dealt with purely by administrative measures, so that the tradition of "second houses," "third houses," etc., for concubines could only end in a wave of divorces, after a campaign of propaganda and education. Under the strong pressure of public opinion, most concubines divorced quickly.

Then the focus shifted to the improvement of women's status in the family and society. Escaping oppression from aggressive mothers-in-law and husbands, women were encouraged to bravely sacrifice these existing family situations and seek domestic happiness elsewhere for themselves.

Madame Zhang, director of the Community Committee where I lived, specialized in such cases.

This 90 kg (198 lb) woman had as her first task every morning to do a door-to-door survey of other women in the neighborhood about everything, from daily habits to monthly periods. There was no area she didn't care about, the emphasis being on whether the interviewee was being abused physically and/or mentally or oppressed by parents-in-law. In the meantime, she never tired of listening to the cases of the many women who bravely sought divorce because of oppression by men in their family. If an interviewee was at all dissatisfied with her husband or parents-in-law, she was immediately and enthusiastically counseled to seek a divorce, applying as many times as necessary. Thanks to Madame Zhang's dedication, there were 20 more couples divorced on our 200-meter-long (656-foot) street, which contained about 200 families, with women making all the applications. Later, because of this, she won second prize in the all-district honors meet for popularizing the marriage law.

Among these 20 additional couples who separated, the case of two couples was so dramatic that it's left a deep impression on me 50 years later. I've forgotten their names simply because it was so long ago and only remember that they were the owners of two adjacent pastry shops, the boss of one having a year-round adulterous relationship with the landlady of the other, and, what is more, the boss of the second involved in complications with the landlady of the first.

Civil war broke out between the two families every two or three days, and the women were always the losers in any physical conflict. Whenever I went to buy cake, the landlady had usually received head injuries and wore bandages. Sometimes the boss's face bore long, bloody fingernail marks. The neighbors were all too familiar with the ongoing situation, but no one was able to intervene.

Madame Zhang, however, sounded the alarm in this case as soon as she became aware of it. She spent a couple of evenings carefully indoctrinating each landlady separately, pointing out that their abuse typified the oppression of women and that their stinker husbands should not be readily forgiven. She crossed her heart in promising, as a government representative, to master the two troublemakers and encouraged the women to make a thorough break with their men and bravely seek new relationships. With her repeated encouragement, both couples broke up within a month.

At that time, going to court was not as complex as it is now. As long as it was the woman who raised the case, and she could provide evidence of being abused and beaten, her aim could usually be attained. Furthermore, she even presented evidence from the Citizens' Committee confirming having been beaten.

By way of comic relief, within a couple of days after the divorce the boss of the first shop married the landlady of the second, and about a week later the boss of the second shop married the landlady of the first. Madame Zhang scored big, the four involved being overjoyed to fulfill their dreams of many years, so it was natural to imagine how much heartfelt gratitude they bore her.

Not long after this exchange of partners, perhaps because of the difficulty of forgetting the original marriages, relations between the landladies and bosses of each shop were resumed, but naturally there was no civil war this time. In an equivalent exchange, after enjoying the benefits of fair trade, the four parties not only exchanged amity for antagonism, but also kept the whole business a close secret.

Then, a long time later, one man was caught relieving himself in the basement of the first shop and heard the new landlady of the other having orgasm in the bed of the first shop's boss. The neighbors got wind of this from loose talk by the first man after his return. Busybodies found out that there had been a secret door cut through, with room for one person to negotiate the common wall of the two shops, the door being covered with chests during the day. The chests were moved away at night according to the needs of business intercourse, if you will.

The cake foursome that had benefited from the marriage law lasted until 1956, when "the multi-operation of private and public" (a euphemism for the confiscation of all private businesses by the Communist Party of the PRC) was implemented all over the country. The two pastry shops were combined into a breakfast cafe, the situation thereafter becoming obscure.

I was in junior high school when Madame Zhang was running around all day propagandizing the marriage law. No slacker, she was, although not quite literate, and there were few cultural workers in the neighborhood. She would drag me into helping her do the statistics and filling out of forms. At times, she'd ask me to take notes during the women's meeting, and later I became chief secretary. It was a blessing that there was little housework at that time.

My memory is that women were asked to meet almost every night. The content of the first meetings was topics like indignantly challenging the market in marriages arranged by others and defeating misogynous old customs, like wife-beating, etc. Later, it focused on combating old-style marriage, advocating the freedom to love, the exchange of information on divorce, discussing the ins-and-outs of divorce actions, how to bring men to account, etc.

Following that, the meetings became enlivened by the exchange of experience of how to combat male domination. Participants couldn't wait to share their experience of countering male aggression, how to become aware of male stratagems, and how to exploit the threat of divorce as a means of controlling their husbands' behavior. Some reported objectively on the progress of their suits, sharing their gains and what they had learned. Encouragement and sometimes even tearful counseling were given by the sisters to those who didn't try their best in standing up to men or lacked assertiveness in divorce proceedings.

After those meetings, big and small, the main lesson I got from the marriage law was how to define wife-beating, in which one blow should suffice as grounds for divorce. Once I even asked a father, "Has mother wanted to divorce you?" His gloomy expression was reply enough. It was many years later that I at last understood what the marriage law was, but the enlightenment I derived from the women's meetings benefited me a lot in my life, as I have never abused even a hair of my wife's head.

Summarizing, all those meetings were very inspired and energetic. Since then, I have seldom encountered meetings as unforgettable.

Though the meetings were so inspired, as an immature 12-year-old I was totally out of my depth in what the women were fervently sharing, which troubled me very much when taking notes. One of the things that left a deep impression at that time was how many took part in a revolutionary sisterhood competition, on the basis of how many days they could boast of "not letting a man lean on me."

After showing up at each meeting, the participants one-by-one would report the days and have me record them. The most crucial thing was that they said nothing other a single number: "18,", "27," etc. So I asked Madame Zhang what this number meant. Immediately the meeting room burst into laughter, and I became incoherent. As the chair, she told me, "Don't ask too much. Just take notes."

Later, she had me make up a spread sheet with a column for names and the days as rows, which made it clear at a glance. After I finished the form, I asked her to name it. She thought for a while, and then said, "Just name it the Women Turnover Form."

After filling it out for a couple of days, I still couldn't understand what the numbers represented, so I asked mother. Surprisingly, she laughed and then fell silent. By persisting, I got her to tell me that it was the number of days they didn't let a man lean against them. I further asked what the phrase "not to let a man lean against you," meant, and she pointed at my forehead and laughed, "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies. Look at that fatso -- it only took her a couple of days to teach you bad words." After that, she didn't tell me anything.

I still remember the record being held by a woman named Pu Xiuyin. She was less then 40 years old and extremely thin but had an extremely resonant voice. Her record of "not letting a man lean against" her was 197, 50 days ahead of second place. In last place was a very beautiful lady, who participated for only 10 days.

Though these things left a deep impression, the most unforgettable was the change in their language when the women greeted each other.

In the past, when housewives in Nanjing (the capital of Jiangsu Province) met in the evenings, their first words to each other were "(have you) eaten?" After a course of meetings, big and small, however, and the women not knowing each other's origins, the greeting changed to "divorced?" Such a new tag was first used by only a few people but soon became universal.

At that time, I felt it both refreshing and interesting and taught it to my younger brother, who was only five years old then and had just learned to speak. Showing off his newly acquired word, he kept babbling "Divorced?" "Divorced?" which he blurted to whomever he met. My father soon found out my brother's inappropriate hobby and asked him where he learned it. My brother said "elder brother taught me." I was nearby and knew that my case was not auspicious. I planned to make a dash for it, but, before I could move, dad picked me up in one fell swoop, squashed me down on the bed and gave me a big spanking. Humans are the animals who remember being beaten but forget what they've eaten, so, because of this spanking, I have fixed this story of "divorced?"





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