Marital agreements: when ‘I do’ means ‘I don’t’

The Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China was initially promulgated in 1950. It was the first legislation since the founding of the PRC in 1949, even earlier than the Constitution Law, which was enacted in 1954. The 1950 Marriage Law ceased to take legal effect after the National People’s Congress reissued the Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China in 1980, which came into force on 1 January 1981 and was revised in 2001.

Marriage laws deal with husband-wife relationships and parent-child relationships such as divorce and paternity, which are established to help people solve the legal aspects of family relationship issues. This article discusses several agreements concerning the marriage itself or the properties jointly owned by husband and wife.

Loyalty agreement. One of the general principles stipulated in the PRC Marriage Law is that the husband and wife must be loyal to each other, emotionally and physically. Let us think about a scenario where a wife finds out about her husband’s adultery. The errant husband refuses to give her a divorce and in order to sustain the marriage he signs an agreement in which he agrees to surrender his right to certain community property and promises to indemnify the wife if he commits adultery again. We call this kind of agreement a loyalty agreement.

Gao Xing is a partner and attorney-at-law with Boss & Young in Shanghai