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China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

nytimes.com

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Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#71

Post by arcticfox »

dpark wrote: post #47
gakada wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that marriages in capitalist societies are inherently unstable. If rights are equal, then women are incentivised to divorce to "cash in" the value of their husband. If the rights are unequal, then men are incentivised to divorce to "trade up" to a more attractive wife. It's only agrarian societies that manage to make husband and wife dependent enough on each other that divorce is a bad option for everybody.

> If rights are equal, then women are incentivised to divorce to "cash in" the value of their husband. This only applies if earning potential between women and men is wildly disparate. When women can and do earn as much as men, the "cashing in" factor largely goes away.

I think this is a problem if the actual net worth is significantly different between partners, not earning potential.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#72

Post by Throwaway23412 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #57
HNerInChina wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. This was the reason for community property laws in the West. But now that women w…

The divorce rate in the USA is nowhere near that high. It peaked at around 60% in the 80s and has fallen to below 50% since then. There is a reason many woman want the apartment in their name as a co owner before they get married: otherwise they'll have no recourse on divorce. Even if they helped pay for it, they need their name there or they have no rights. This is how it is in China, relatively simple. As for paren…

He said that women file 65-70% of divorces, not that the divorce rate is 65-75%.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#73

Post by venomsnake »

coldtea wrote: post #17
venomsnake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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".

And what are the unmarried men doing in the meantime?

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#74

Post by in_cahoots »

HNerInChina wrote: post #50
ripitrust wrote: post #20

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 (somet…

>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. This was the reason for community property laws in the West. But now that women w…

Did you read the article? Men in China institute the vast majority of divorces, and they usually keep the house (even if the women helped pay for it), the children, the money, and the higher earning potential. This isn't women unfairly taking all of men's resources, this is women being left homeless when their husbands find another partner.

In contrast, men in the US get custody as much as women when they pursue it. And while I won't argue about the exact proportion of money that is kept by the man and the woman, neither party is left homeless and jobless.

So your comment seems like a false equivalence to me. Furthermore, even if the Western situation is biased against men, that doesn't make China's system any more acceptable. Two wrongs don't make a right, after all.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#75

Post by colmvp »

Isofarro wrote: post #58
branchless wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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 pow…

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.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#76

Post by coldtea »

venomsnake wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

And what are the unmarried men doing in the meantime?

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.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#77

Post by HNerInChina »

in_cahoots wrote: post #74
HNerInChina wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. This was the reason for community property laws in the West. But now that women w…

Did you read the article? Men in China institute the vast majority of divorces, and they usually keep the house (even if the women helped pay for it), the children, the money, and the higher earning potential. This isn't women unfairly taking all of men's resources, this is women being left homeless when their husbands find another partner. In contrast, men in the US get custody as much as women when they pursue it .…

> Did you read the article? Men in China institute the vast majority of divorces,

Yes, I read the article and nowhere does it state that men institute the vast majority of divorces.

The article does provide some numbers: the base fee for disrupting a mistress is around $45000. This is not an article about poor, destitute women.

> contrast, men in the US get custody as much as women when they pursue it.

The key phrase here is "when they pursue it", which, as you are probably aware, is not very often because any decent lawyer will advise the man not waste tens of thousands of dollars on an almost certain failure. That's why women get custody over 90% of the time.

The article refers to costly divorces without explaining how a divorce that costs less than $10 to file by filling out a few forms can be costly.

I have provided numbers but you take issue not with my numbers but the fact that I have raised awareness of a mirror image scourge that has for several decades destroyed more lives in the West, where most on HN reside, than this nascent problem in China. Log/mote, eye, hypocrisy, etc.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#78

Post by srtjstjsj »

gakada wrote: post #41
belorn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"70% of women think that men should only get married after buying their own housing properties" according to a 2011 survey. The survey also shows "that about 80% of the single women interviewed think that it's reasonable for men to only consider a relationship if they receive a monthly income of above 4,000 yuan" ( http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1... ) Reducing that number to 0 percent and…

It seems that marriages in capitalist societies are inherently unstable. If rights are equal, then women are incentivised to divorce to "cash in" the value of their husband. If the rights are unequal, then men are incentivised to divorce to "trade up" to a more attractive wife. It's only agrarian societies that manage to make husband and wife dependent enough on each other that divorce is a bad option for everybody.

This is where lawyers help! By soaking up all the marital funds in a divorce, lawyers remove the profit incentive of leaving a partner.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#79

Post by srtjstjsj »

arcticfox wrote: post #71
dpark wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If rights are equal, then women are incentivised to divorce to "cash in" the value of their husband. This only applies if earning potential between women and men is wildly disparate. When women can and do earn as much as men, the "cashing in" factor largely goes away.

I think this is a problem if the actual net worth is significantly different between partners, not earning potential.

For most people, earning potential is 99% of lifetime net worth. The vagaries of the aristoracy aren't that interesting.

Re: China’s Cheating Husbands Fuel an Industry of ‘Mistress Dispellers’

#80

Post by srtjstjsj »

intrasight wrote: post #70
lectrick wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right. So as has been true forever and a day, men can either think with their head or with their penis.

You mean, use their head for their wallet or their penis.
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