There has been such a surge in divorce rate in the country that registration offices are struggling to cope with the rush.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, no dates are available for couples to file for divorce with the local office until next month except for a few days in Tianhe, Haizhu and Baiyun districts, according to the website of Guangzhou marriage registration office.
Chinese couples must have their divorce certified by marriage registration office or resort to court, which means an even more complicated process, before they can officially be separated, according to the marriage law.
"We are seriously understaffed," said a director of a local marriage registration office in Guangzhou speaking on condition of anonymity, "all of our workers are operating in full capacity."
The office has six counters that help 100 couples get married or divorced apart from issuing 300 certificates that certify single status on a daily basis. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to issue a marriage certificate, half an hour or even longer to issue a divorce certificate and five to 10 minutes to issue a certificate to singles.
With the recent increase in divorce rate, the handling capacity of these offices has come under serious strain.
Short temper brought about by hot weather is one reason contributing to rising divorce rate, especially during summer break when families are faced with more housework and caring for children or the elderly, according to senior marriage counselors.
Some couples may have a quarrel on Saturday or Sunday, and then rush to marriage registration office to seek divorce on Monday or Tuesday, making the two days the busiest for divorce application.
What's more, June to September is the annual divorce peak season in China when most children have completed their senior high school admission exam and college entrance exam, the two most important exams for Chinese student, so parents don't have to fake their happy marriage any longer for the sake of better performance of their children at the exams.
More divorce cases were processed in the 20 days after the college entrance exam than in the 20 days before it by many courts in a number of Chinese provinces and municipalities such as Shandong, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Hunan, Tianjin and Chongqing ever since 2009.
Nearly 500 couples sought divorce in the first week following the college entrance exam mostly on grounds that they were incompatible and that they didn't want to continue their marriage for the sake of their children in Changsha, Central China's Hunan province, a figure that was almost twice the number in the previous week, according to a Changsha-based newspaper Sanxiang Metro.
Unlike most young couples who tend to end their marriage on impulse, most middle-aged couples, who are burdened with so many responsibilities, choose to sever their tie after serious deliberation.
Besides, some couples choose to fake their divorce so as to enjoy various favorable house purchase policies that are entitled only to first-house buyers. By divorcing and leaving all the properties to the other spouse, one spouse can purchase their "first house" with lower percentage of down payment and lower interest rate. Most couples get remarried after the transactions of the houses is completed.
Whatever the reasons behind divorces, some Internet users believe that couples should be able to divorce whenever they want because the freedom of divorce is a sacred right endowed to Chinese citizens by the marriage law, and that the marriage registration offices should increase their efficiency to guarantee the right to divorce to their people.
However, others believe that time can allow couples to calm down to have second thought about their move.
"From my more than a decade of work experience in certifying people's divorce, I just feel that it's now too easy and too convenient for people to get a divorce, though we are legally forbidden to set up a divorce quota," said an anonymous senior staff at a marriage registration office.
With the intention of saving more families from reckless divorces, the marriage registration office asked couples to book their divorce one week in advance in Cixi city, East China's Zhejiang province, in 2012, and the marriage registration office in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, rationed the divorces it will process daily to 10 to 15 in 2014.
