Shanghai makes it harder for married people to cheat
The Shanghai government is helping to take the guesswork out of local relationships.Forget Googling that person you just went out with. The Shanghai and Chinese governments are offering an even easier solution to check up on them: a marriage database.
Shanghai will be among China’s first cities and provinces to share its marriage database in an effort to help “prevent bigamy and cheating in marriage,” reports Shanghai Daily.
Residents will be able to check if someone is already married or has been divorced, once civil affairs departments across the country are linked up.
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A nationwide system should be online by 2015.
For now, the first areas to share information will be Shanghai, Beijing and Shaanxi Province, which should all be online this year.
"This will help stop bigamy," said Zhou Jixiang, an official with the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.
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Currently, Shanghai residents can check only the marital status of natives, not of anyone originally from outside the city.
Stepping outside a marriage has becoming an increasing problem in Shanghai and across China. A Shanghai man was recently jailed for bigamy.
The 2010 survey “Explaining Extramarital Sex: Evidence from Urban China” reports that almost 4 percent of urban Chinese married women and just more than 20 percent of married Chinese men have had extramarital sex in the past year.
