A young man of 24 years, living in Qiche town of Suqian city in Jiangsu Province, has found himself battling against his maternal mother for the rights to his inheritance, as a result of her defacto marriage. The story shines a light on China’s legal system with regards to how it aims to protect the rights of man and woman, whether married or not.
Defacto marriage are recognised in countries such as Australia, the UK and some European nations, and is defined as the state of marriage between a man and a woman who have not registered in accordance with the law and have lived together in the name of the couple. Marriage in China is a big deal, even now, and one would be mistaken for assuming that a couple that live in a defacto relationship in China would have no rights. This is simply not the case.
As originally reported by the Yangtze Evening News, 16 years ago, Zhou Moying, mother of Cai Bing (pseudonym), left his father and disappeared completely from his life. At the end of 2016, Cai Bing’s father was killed in a car accident. At the funeral, Zhou reappeared, demanding her son split his father’s inheritance with her; after Cai refused, she went to court. The deceased, Cai Moujun, never wrote an official will before the accident, so as a result, the issue was left to the courts; their job to filter through some murky waters, in order to find justice.
In 1987, the mother and father began living together and started a family without formally registering a marriage. As uncommon as this was at the time, the two continued to live this way. In 1990 and 1994 respectively, she gave birth to Cai and a little girl. In 2000, Zhou disappeared, taking the little girl with her, never to be heard of again.
The People’s Court of Suqian issued a briefing on 21 April of court proceedings. The court found that both parties met requirements that constitute a defacto marriage, and no act of bigamy was found as Cai failed to prove that Zhou has been living as husband and wife with anyone else. The court explained that Cai Moujun (the daughter) did not leave of her own free will, and that the first-order legal heir should divide the estate, according to law. In the end, the court awarded Zhou Moying 20 percent of the inheritance money, the daughter was awarded 30 percent and the defendant Cai 50 percent.
The case was later uploaded to the Internet whereupon legal professionals from all over China had something to say, delving into China’s laws regarding defacto relationships and highlighting certain holes in the system.
“This means that since 1 February, 1994, with the ‘Regulations on the Administration of Marriage Registration’, living together in the name of husband and wife relationship, as long as there is no registration, it is not a legal marriage”, one user commented.
Another said, “If the defacto marriage took place before 1 February, 1994, according to the “Interpretation of the Marriage Law (1)’, the court could end the defacto marriage by suing for divorce. But by not suing for divorce, does this factual marriage ever exist? At present, there is no clear basis in the laws of our country”.
