More than 80,000 couples divorced in Guangdong in 2005, a year-on-year increase of 17.4 percent, Guangdong provincial civil affairs bureau said Tuesday.

Seventy percent of the couples divorced through mutual consent, with the remainder receiving court orders.

A spokesman for the civil affairs bureau said the increase was partly due to the 2003 regulation on marriage registration, which made divorce easier.

Also, many couples rushing to get married at the end of 2004, believing that marriage in 2005 would bring misfortune, divorced last year, he said.

Last year was believed to be a year not suitable for marriage as the year didn¡¯t have the seasonal division point, or ¡°beginning of spring,¡± according to the lunar calendar.

Some 589,408 couples married last year, a slightly decrease from 2004.