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March 25, 2017

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Wives primed to fight love rats

IN ancient China, concubines were socially accepted accessories for emperors and wealthy men. Nowadays, wives aren’t so willing to turn a blind eye to husbands having mistresses, but that still leaves them in often wrenching circumstances.

Angel Lin, in her late 30s, has been married for 11 years with two kids. She discovered that her husband began cheating on her two weeks after their marriage. From then on, she fought what she said was a painstaking battle against his mistresses.

One time, she managed to find out the name and phone number of one of the mistresses. She phoned and had her 6-year-old son talk to the woman. It worked. The mistress was ashamed and ended the affair.

“In the beginning, I still had hope and battled for love,” Lin says. “Now I spend most of my time just trying to keep the family money for my children.”

Lin says her family and close friends have sided with her. Some of them applaud her decision to go after the mistresses, while others say her husband is worthless and she should just get a divorce.

Not all women are as forthright as Lin in confronting the infidelity problem head-on by themselves. Some prefer to turn to “marriage protection” companies, an industry that has sprung up to help women deal with the “other woman.”

The Shanghai-based company Wei Qing, literally meaning “maintain affections,” is reported to have made nearly 15 million yuan (US$2.2 million) in profit in the first 10 months of 2016 by providing services like marriage counseling and training sessions on how to eliminate or prevent the threat of straying husbands. The company said it may sell shares to raise money for expansion.

Another company provides “mistress blockers” for up to 30,000 yuan a month. The “blockers” pose as neighbors, gym mates and domestic helpers of suspected mistresses to gather information and intervene to warn the women off. Sometimes they provide a fake new target to lure a mistress away from a client’s husband.

Dozens of companies across China engaged in this new industry do most of their advertising online. Some offer training on how wives can make themselves more attractive to husbands or develop detective skills to spot a cheating spouse.

“We use every method possible and it’s not illegal to persuade or trick a mistress into leaving a man,” says Amy Zhang, a marriage counselor and “mistress blocker” in her late 40s, based in Dongguan city of Guangdong Province.

She says her income in 2016 grew 10-fold, without disclosing any figures.

“The majority of our clients are desperate women in their 40s and 50s,” she tells Shanghai Daily. “The cost is nothing compared with the potential financial loss of a divorce or the properties and money their husbands might give to mistresses.”

Stigma of divorce eases

Veteran divorce lawyer Larry Wang explains that wives can legally sue a mistress to reclaim gifts or money they receive from husbands because those assets are considered common property protected by the marriage. But in reality, there’s often not much wives can do to punish a straying husband.

The divorce rate in 2015, the most recent data available from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, was 2.8 people for every 1,000. Many wives still refuse to get a divorce even though contemporary society is generally more open-minded about that than in the past.

“I can’t think of myself as a divorced woman,” says a 52-year-old Shenzhen native surnamed Meng, who is founder of a WeChat group called “mistress-fighting wives.” The site offers women a forum for exchanging advice on how to handle love rats.

“The basic idea is to improve your own appearance and presence and to learn skills that help you detect the early traits of the affair,” Meng says on the website. “It is a battle, and you have to be a fighter, or otherwise you and your children will lose big time.”

Wei Qing, according to media reports, gets 87 percent of its revenue from services like “mistress blocking.” Revenue quadrupled in a year. One client reportedly paid as much as 1.4 million yuan to win back her husband.

Ming Li, chief marriage counselor and team leader of “mistress blockers” at the company, confirmed reports that Wei Qing may seek to sell shares but she disclosed no details.

Of course, any new trend that appears to be lucrative attracts new players in droves. Many competitors, including online matchmaking giant Baihe.com, have been expanding into the business. Baihe’s recruitment page lists seven positions for “mistress hunters,” each offering monthly pay of 15,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan.

Preferred applicants must have skills in the performing arts or cosmetics, indicating they might be involved in schemes to trick mistresses or to provide makeover services for wives.

“I believe the market will grow even faster because Chinese people tend to want to keep dirty linen at home,” Zhang says. “They would prefer to resolve infidelity issues through private services rather than public divorce.”

Chen Lianwen,
28, married for two years

“I would just get divorced if my husband had a mistress. Why would I pay so much to get him back once he has betrayed me? These ‘mistress blockers’ seem to be merely hustlers, and I’m not even sure if what they do is legal.”

 

Alice Wang, 37, married for five years

“It sounds like an odd job, mistress blocking, but I wouldn’t shut out the idea entirely. My husband had an extramarital affair, and it took me over a year to save our marriage. If I had known of the service then and they could have guaranteed success, I might have considered it.”

 

Lu Wen, 35, married for 10 years

“Society is overwhelmingly tolerant of men who have mistresses, and even of women who are involved in extramarital affairs. Some men even think that having a mistress or two is a status symbol, like owning a Swiss watch or a race car. It’s crazy.”

 

Mrs Liang, 48, married for 26 years

“In the past, if a husband cheated, you could report him to his work unit for bad moral behavior and he would be scared into stopping. Today, nothing scares them. Nothing can punish them, so nothing can stop them from cheating.”




 

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