After you marrying a Chinese lady in China, the right-obligation relationship legally binding to both of your parties has been established. The following will introduce the obligation in the marriage in China.
After you marrying a Chinese lady in China, the right-obligation relationship legally binding to both of your parties has been established. The following will introduce the obligation in the marriage in China.
1. Husband and wife shall be under the obligation of supporting each other. After marriage, either husband or wife fully or partly losing ability to work or meeting difficulties in life has right to request living expenses or other economical assistance from the other one. People’s courts in China will not support that, without any objective and reasonable excuse, the party with labor ability doesn’t go to work and requests living expenses from his/her spouse.
2. Unless otherwise agreed upon, any property obtained during the existence of marriage is regarded as jointly owned property. According to Chinese law, unless otherwise agreed upon, any property obtained by either party, should be regarded as jointly owned property during the existence of your marriage.
Jointly owned property refers to the property that both of you obtain after your marriage, and pre-marital property is still owned by the one party who have owned it. It is wrong for you to believe that once marriage, your parents’ or your pre-marital property will turn to be jointly owned by you and your husband/wife.
3. Both husband and wife shall be entitled to inherit the property of each other.
Husband or wife will be entitled to inherit the property from each party once post-marital death happens. The heritage includes both pre-marital and post-marital property. Either party may, by means of a will made before his/her death in accordance with the provisions of law, dispose of the property he owns.
4. Husband and wife have the obligation of being truthful to each other. According to Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, husband and wife shall be truthful to and respect each other, and it is a requirement for you morally and legally, that your husband or wife is the only person you love.
However, it is not true in practice since human emotions are changeable and there are more and more extramarital love stories and extramarital sexual acts. There is no crime of adultery and clauses about the third party’s responsibility to compensate damages in Chinese law. Due to a series of factors, there is difficulty, legislatively and practically, in punishing the party who disobeys the obligation to be truthful to each other.