Divorce not destiny of marriage

Jean Reno seems to speak the truth in Couples Retreat when he says "a marriage is not a timeless agreement". Many people say marriage is the grave of love, and divorce, a freedom from that grave.It could be true of Chinese society today, if the media reports on the "increasing divorce rate" ever since the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the quarterly figures in late April to be believed.

Statistics show China's civil affair organizations dealt with 465,000 divorce cases in the first quarter of this year, or an average of more than 5,000 cases a day and a 17.1 percent rise year-on-year. But statistics can be misinterpreted and thus misleading.

The media say the divorce rate hit 14.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011, and has been rising for "seven consecutive years", from 2002 to 2009, with most of them questioning the future of conjugal relationship in China, which used to be strong and lasting.