"Dad came back very quickly. What did you do?" Ye Kai asked with concern when he saw Ye Ziping coming back and walked over to help him hang his coat on the hanger. Then he poured him a cup of tea.
"Some things at work are very boring." Ye Ziping glanced at his son and saw that he seemed to be more concerned, so he added, "I made a statement about the foreign-related marriage dispute."
"Foreign-related marriage... This seems to be something that the civil affairs department should worry about..." Ye Kai asked curiously after hearing this.
In Ye Kai's impression, matters like marriage have always been managed by the civil affairs department. Why does Ye Ziping, a member of the Central Political Bureau, have to worry about it? It really feels like killing a chicken with a knife. Should the members of the Central Political Bureau handle these small things?
?You simply don’t regard the village chief as a cadre!
"Marriage itself is a major event for people, let alone adding the word foreign-related?" Ye Ziping glared at his son angrily, and then said, "Diplomacy is no small matter, and the same goes for foreign-related marriages. It is easy to go wrong, so in
I have always been more cautious in this regard.”
"Actually, I think this kind of thing is very indifferent..." Ye Kai said, "Marriage and having children are all people's basic rights. It's none of other people's business who they want to marry or have children with.
?As long as it is handled on a voluntary basis, the civil affairs department should do nothing in this regard. Why do they have to intervene and make people feel uncomfortable? If foreigners see it, just say, you
Disrespect human rights!”
"What does not respect human rights mean? There are many explanations..." Ye Ziping shook his head, strongly disagreeing with his son's point of view.
Looking at it from his position, marriage is also an important factor related to national security, social stability, and family harmony. How can it be said to be a trivial matter?
Beginning in the early 1980s, the revised Marriage Law included relationship breakdown as the basis for divorce, making it easier for Chinese people to get divorced. Starting in 1980, divorce began to become a normal part of Chinese marriages.
Transnational marriages also began to appear. The innocent and silent "wild girl" Shen Danping in "The Forgotten Corner of Love" suddenly disappeared from Chinese screens in 1984. She became the first well-known Chinese movie star to marry a foreigner.
Shen Danping's marriage aroused strong repercussions from society.
Since the mid-1980s, popular female movie stars have been disappearing suddenly, and there have been rumors that some of them are doing dishes abroad, and some of them are married to foreigners.
This trend is especially popular in Mingzhu City. In the past three years, the growth rate of foreign-related marriages has been 33%.
"The rapid growth of foreign-related marriages in Mingzhu City is mainly because Mingzhu people found that after being isolated from the world for many years, Mingzhu fell behind, and some women wanted to change their living environment and material living conditions by marrying outside. At that time, foreign-related marriages were almost exclusively
The "domestic women and foreign men" type, "old husbands and young wives" accounted for a high proportion. Due to the large differences in age and knowledge level, coupled with language barriers and lack of emotional foundation, many marriage crises occurred in the future.
"Ye Ziping said to his son, "The marriage expectations of Chinese people who are high-minded, foreigners, wealthy, and eager for quick success and quick success are climbing up one mountain after another. Therefore, a new term was created, sugar daddy. But then came
The divorce rate has also increased, resulting in many financial disputes."
Speaking of this matter, Ye Ziping mentioned another matter, which was also quite influential at the time.
In 1983, 36 women jointly petitioned the All-China Women's Federation, suing their husband Chen Shimei. These women were all intellectuals. They had consciously supported their husbands' careers in the past years and allowed them to continue their studies.
.However, after taking advantage of the opportunities after the Cultural Revolution, these husbands actually took advantage of the "breakup of relationship" article in the new Marriage Law to file for divorce and stop ruining their wives.
At that time, the central leadership made a famous instruction: "Family is the cell of society... Young workers and women should all be concerned about this issue." This instruction eventually became a weapon for the victory of the petitioning women. Not one of the 36 Chen Shimei got divorced.
"But within 10 years, they all divorced, and no one was left," said Ye Ziping.
"If the people's hearts are broken, the team will naturally be unable to lead." Ye Kai said, "Actually, the new marriage law is not wrong. Rather than being tied together and fighting, it is better to get rid of it as soon as possible."
However, He Qing obviously has a different view in this regard. "Women are in a weak position in marriage and cannot achieve absolute fairness and justice. Moreover, the marriage law does not do enough to protect women's rights, especially when a third party intervenes."
Such things are only morally condemned, and there are no strict laws to protect one's own interests. I am quite disappointed with the marriage law."
"You can't say that. I think these problems are caused by the monogamy system." Ye Kai waved his hand and said, "If we let go of this and implement the polygamy system, we won't have these worries. As long as you have the ability, you can
You can have as many wives as you want, as long as you can afford them, then there won't be any problem."
"That's a ridiculous idea! Even so, there's no guarantee that there won't be an extramarital affair, right?" He Qing immediately condemned Ye Kai's idea.
"Then it's different..." Ye Kai said, "Since polygamy is allowed, extramarital affairs must be absolutely prohibited. As long as you get on the bus, you have to pay a fare, and the behavior of destroying other people's families will be punished.
The intensity must also be increased, and severe punishment must be used to replace the so-called moral condemnation!”
"How is it possible? When has there been such a strict law in so many years? Extramarital affairs are just moral condemnation..." He Qing denied.
"So it can only be said that the people who make the law have problems themselves. If they have no ghosts in their hearts, how can they leave these tails? Let a group of sanctimonious hypocrites make the law. The law will naturally be full of loopholes. They are everywhere
The back door he stayed in order to escape his guilt." Ye Kai pointed out pointedly.
Ziping heard his son arguing with He Qing, and the words became more and more outrageous. He almost called all the experts who formulated the law as sinister and despicable villains, which immediately made him dumbfounded.
"Okay, okay, let's not mention this matter anymore. Ye Kai, those of you are just weird talk and have no practical significance at all." Ye Ziping waved his hand to stop their argument, "Let me clear my head for a while.
, after dinner we took a plane to Beijing."
The problem that bothered him was the issue regarding Mingzhu City's decision to liberalize the review of foreign-related marriages.
In fact, although there were many examples of Chinese marrying foreigners at that time, the proportion was very small after all. If Chinese people really wanted to make up their mind to marry foreigners, they had to go through several hurdles and the pressure they endured was incredible. But
No exaggeration at all.
Many elderly people believe that their children marrying foreigners is "betraying the motherland, betraying the Party and the people." In order to express their opposition, parents will even force them to sever ties.
In addition to the parents' firm disapproval, there were also tests from the employer and the registration authority. At that time, to register a marriage with the domestic marriage registration authority, a letter of certification issued by the employer was required.
The employer's view on foreign-related marriages generally suggests that the parties concerned should voluntarily resign.
But most people are highly dependent on their work units, so resigning is by no means as easy as it sounds.
If a person does not have an employer and no organizational connections, it means that he cannot live a normal life in society. If a person does not have a certificate issued by an employer, he cannot even go through the procedures for a passport and going abroad.
For party members, foreign-related marriages are also suspected of "betraying the party organization", so they are generally advised to take the initiative to divorce.
Before registering a marriage between Chinese and foreigners, they must prepare their household registration books, ID cards, and letters of certification issued by county and regiment-level units to prove the marital status of the parties. The foreign party is required to provide a passport, professional certificate, and have it notarized by the Chinese Embassy.
Both parties must also go to a designated hospital for a pre-marital physical examination.
After the applicant submits the materials, the marriage registration agency does not immediately register and issue a certificate. There is also a working skill of the marriage registration agency, which is to "wait and see".
For marriage applications involving foreigners, the registration agency will usually inquire about the situation from the unit and sub-district office where the Chinese party is located, and use staff to do ideological work.
At that time, due to ideological work and the pressure from the parties' units and public opinion, some parties could not bear it and no longer insisted on marrying foreigners. Therefore, when some marriage applications were approved after two, three weeks or even a month, the parties to the marriage were not
I will never come to collect the certificate again.
However, in the 1990s, the number of foreign-related marriage registrations increased year by year.
Last year, the number of foreign-related marriages registered in Mingzhu City was more than 2,000. The society's attitude towards foreign-related marriages has also become much more tolerant. When handling marriage registration, the marriage registration agency has canceled the "persuasion and waiting" attitude of the 1980s and changed it to "neither object to it"
, nor supported”.
"The Municipal People's Congress's proposal proposes to liberalize the review of foreign-related marriages, and also puts forward some supplementary clauses and modifications to the current marriage law." Ye Ziping said to his son, "This matter seems a bit trivial, and the impact
But it’s very big. I’m having a headache, should I agree?”
"So this is what happened..." Ye Kai felt a little scratched his head after hearing this.
According to the current situation, the country's attitude towards foreign-related marriages should be tacit approval. It is really troublesome to ask them to suddenly change and publicly express support, or to recognize and protect it in legal form.
"I think the matter of foreign-related marriages can be liberalized, but following that, we should discuss how to protect the legal rights of the parties involved in foreign-related marriages." After thinking for a while, Ye Kai finally put forward his own suggestion,
"Letting go is a small matter and very simple, but protecting the rights of the parties concerned in accordance with the law is the most important."
Ziping listened and nodded, feeling that his son was right.
He Qing looked at Ye Kai and thought to herself that Ye Kai's suggestion pointed to the crux of the problem and seemed to have some clues.
