A Chinese divorce court ordered a man to pay his ex-wife $7,700 for housework she did over the course of their 5-year marriage

• A Chinese divorce court has ordered a man to pay his ex-wife $7,700 for housework she did in their 5-year marriage, per the SCMP.
• The order follows the passing of a new law that allows the spouse who did the majority of the housework in a marriage to ask for compensation in a divorce. 
• One divorce lawyer told the Post that the amount the husband paid his wife was too low. 
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A divorce court in Beijing ordered a man to pay his wife $7,700 as part of the divorce agreement to compensate her for the housework she did over their five-year marriage, Phoebe Zhang reported for the South China Morning Post.

The order follows a new marriage law that went into effect in China in January, which includes a clause stating that the spouse who spends more time raising the children and doing housework in a marriage is entitled to ask for compensation for that labor in a divorce, according to the Post.

The Beijing man who requested the divorce, identified in court documents by his last name Chen, met his wife, whose last name is Wang, in 2010, according to the Post. The couple married in 2015 but started living separately in 2018, with their son living with Wang. In 2020, Chen filed for divorce.

In response, the wife asked for a division of property and compensation for housework and childcare, saying Chen wasn’t involved in housework or raising their son. She also said her husband had cheated on her.

In granting the divorce, the Beijing court gave the mother, Wang, custody of the couple’s son and ordered Chen to pay alimony of about $300 per month. The court also ordered Chen to pay Wang a one-time payment of about $7,700 for the housework.

The judge presiding over the case told reporters on Monday that while splitting a couple's assets in a divorce usually involved tangible assets, "housework constitutes intangible property value," according to the BBC.

One divorce attorney in China said the amount Chen paid his ex-wife was too low. 

"Those who do housework are devalued in a marriage, with the most obvious effect being their survival skills in society and their professional skills will probably decrease," Zhong Wen, a divorce attorney in China's Sichuan province, told the Post.

Women are still more likely to take on the most unpaid labor

Women in China spend nearly four hours a day doing unpaid housework, as compared to men putting in about 1.5 hours, according to a study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And it's not only an issue in China; around the world, women are more likely to take on a disproportionate amount of unpaid labor like household chores and childcare.

China's new law is not its first marriage-related law to draw international attention. In recent years, the country has taken various measures to try and curb its rising divorce rate.

Another new law in 2021 requires couples considering divorce to undergo a 30-day "cooling off" period before they file for divorce, which recently sparked a rush of couples filing for divorce before the law went into effect. 

In 2017, some divorce registration offices across China started requiring couples to take a "marriage and family exam" before they were granted a divorce. The exam asks questions like "What responsibilities have you fulfilled to your family, and what do you think have you done well or not well?" In one case, a couple was denied a divorce because they scored too highly on the exam.