Till Debt Do Us Part: The Carousel of Love and Loyalty Contracts
At the tender age of 28, Jill’s heart had been on more rides than a carousel horse, yet a trip down the aisle remained elusive. Her parents, on the brink of launching a full-scale matrimonial manhunt, were getting antsy. One day, her mother, wielding her phone like a magic wand, declared, “I shall conjure up a husband!”
Enter Jack: a chap so decent he could have been knitted by Jill’s grandmother. And as luck—or perhaps fate—would have it, he fancied Jill something fierce. Faster than you could say “meet-cute,” wedding bells were in their future.
On the auspicious ninth of September, our dynamic duo made it official with all the bureaucratic romance the Civil Affairs Bureau could muster. But upon their triumphant return to domesticity, Jill, with the drama of a soap opera queen, unveiled her pièce de résistance: a “Loyalty Agreement” she’d been marinating in her drawer.
Jack, blindsided by this plot twist, was all ears as Jill waxed poetic: “My love life’s been more of a ‘miss’ than a ‘hit.’ Suppose you find another, what then?” Jack, the gallant knight, protested his unwavering affection, but Jill was having none of it. “Sweet words are dandy, but I prefer a legally binding ditty. Stray, and it’s 400,000 Yuan for my broken heart.”
Jack, perhaps dizzy with love (or just dizzy), signed on the dotted line.
Fast-forward two years, and lo and behold, Jill catches Jack tangoing with a fresh-out-of-college femme fatale. Jill, armed with righteous indignation and a not-so-secret weapon, demanded her emotional ransom. Jack, now less knight and more knave, retorted, “You may take your freedom, but my wallet stays shut. That agreement is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.”
And so the question hangs in the air like the last note of a love ballad: Can love, once quantified by a contract, demand its due in cold, hard cash?
Law In A Minute
Under the stipulations of China’s Marriage Law, both spouses are expected to uphold fidelity towards one another. In the curious case of Jill and Jack, they fortified this expectation by signing a loyalty agreement, a creative attempt to cement their commitment to exclusivity. This pact should be viewed as a tangible extension of the Marriage Law’s loyalty mandate.
Given that the law doesn’t forbid such an agreement and it reflects the genuine intentions of the betrothed pair, it is, by all accounts, a legitimate and enforceable document. Should Jill wish to part ways with Jack and he opposes, she is entitled to launch a divorce proceeding in a qualified court, citing the erosion of their mutual affection, and seek recompense for the emotional harm suffered.
Legal Basis
Civil Code
Article 1043
Husband and wife shall be faithful to and respect each other. Within the family, members shall respect the old and cherish the young, help one another, and maintain equal, harmonious and civilized marriage and family relations.
Article 1079
When one party alone desires a divorce, the organizations concerned may carry out mediation, or the party may appeal directly to a people’s court to start divorce proceedings.
In dealing with a divorce case, the people’s court should carry out mediation between the parties. Divorce shall be granted if mediation fails because mutual affection no longer exists.