Breaking Up Is Easy To Do

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What's most striking about the divorce boom is that it's overwhelmingly women who terminate their marriage. The biggest reason? Wandering husbands. China's market economy has brought with it extra cash to support a mistress, an indulgence common enough during the concubine-laden imperial days but nearly impossible in the socialist era, when wages were minuscule and privacy was almost nonexistent. So prevalent are mistresses today that the central government requires officials to report their extramarital affairs to the state. In megacities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, certain neighborhoods have been dubbed "concubine villages" for the pampered inamorata living in them. "Generally, having more freedom is a good thing," says Shu Xin, a former advice columnist who now runs a private marriage-counseling service in Shanghai. "But freedom can mean temptation, and most Chinese men cannot resist having affairs."

The difference is that fewer and fewer women feel compelled to put up with it. The ex-husband of Li Jie, 34, a sales manager for a Shanghai trading firm, kept a mistress for years, even introducing her to his co-workers. But after Li walked in on her husband and his girlfriend in the bedroom, she ended her six-year marriage. "Women have more expectations from marriage now," she says. "They won't put up with the things their mothers or grandmothers might have, and they're not ashamed about divorce, either." (Li's name has been changed to protect the privacy of her ex-husband.)

Like many divorced women, Li has full custody of and is the sole support of her 11-year-old daughter. The concept of alimony is only beginning to enter Chinese society, keeping some wives from splitting with their husbands for fear of not being able to provide for children. But Li makes enough to care for two people. And she isn't wallowing. She attended the inaugural meeting of Shanghai's first-ever Divorce Club--held on Valentine's Day this year--and joined dozens of other divorced men and women at a matchmaking gala filled with Chinese-style entertainment: ballroom dancing, karaoke and poetry recitation. Li also logs on to a 91,000-member website for divorcés. "I want to find someone to love again," she says. "Just because I made a bad choice before shouldn't mean I can't have another opportunity."

The spiraling divorce rate has presented opportunities for China's entrepreneurial classes. The number of divorce lawyers in the city has quintupled in the past five years. Detective agencies specializing in marital investigations are proliferating. Zhang Kaidong, the self-dubbed "Mistress Buster," employs former policemen, journalists, athletes and bodyguards for his three-year-old private-eye firm in Shanghai. Much of his business involves investigating assets for women who worry that their soon-to-be ex-husbands will lowball their savings in divorce court. "Before, women wouldn't fight for their share because they were so embarrassed about divorce," he says. "But it's a material world now." Zhang is no exception. His fees for a basic case are $1,500, roughly half what an average Shanghai resident earns in a year.