 Property rights The draft stipulates that if either a husband or wife signs a real estate purchase contract and pays the down payment on a mortgage before marrying, the estate can be regarded as his or her personal property and the unpaid mortgage as the estate owner’s personal debt. It also states that real estate purchased by one of the couple’s parents after marriage, as long as it is registered under that child’s name, can be regarded as the parents’ grant to that offspring and the personal property of that particular party. Many netizens thought the draft might trigger a rise in the divorce rate, especially among young couples, by virtue of canceling out worries of financial loss by parties that have until now only been considering divorce. Wu Yujuan, a 32-year-old married woman, sums up the situation: “Women pay a lot in their marriage, but the draft seems to ignore that. I work hard to make money to pay the mortgage and other expenses together with my husband during the daytime, and work even harder on the housework and the children at night. But if I divorce, I will have to leave the home I worked so hard for. So what I’ve done over the past years counts for nothing, according to the draft. It’s an unfair law that does not protect woman’s rights.” However, some experts thought the law protected the rights of those who paid the most for apartments, particularly parents who spent their savings on children’s apartments. “If you think about it from another angle, is it fair to those who spent all they’ve got to buy one apartment; all their years of savings suddenly cut in half just because of the divorce,” said Tang Min, a divorce lawyer with Shenhui Law Firm. The law would also deter gold diggers intent on making money from marriages, Tang added. | 