Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, Hu Kangsheng, vice-director of the Legal Affairs Commission under the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said making distinctions between the sometimes overlapping realms of law and ethics was one of the most controversial topics during the amendment of the law.

"As far as marriage goes, law should govern personal and property rights and help maintain the social order while ethics should govern people's behaviour when it comes to feelings, morality and tradition," Hu said.

Hu explained that lawmakers struggled to keep law from trampling ethics when developing stipulations on cheating within a marriage.

The new law bans the keeping of a covert lover, which has attracted a great deal of attention during deliberations on the amendment. Married people living with a lover other than their spouses is prohibited, too.

Also to be punished is bigamy.

According to the Criminal Code, commitment of bigamy leads to criminal punishment ranging from detention to imprisonment of up to two years.

In spite of these punishments, a number of wealthy Chinese men have recently started keeping concubines under the guise of secretaries and housekeepers.

It is difficult to extend criminal stipulations in such cases and it was improper for the Marriage Law, a piece of civil legislation, to regulate criminal acts, legal experts explained.

Some legislators suggested that the amended Marriage Law should ban bigamy and "other practices that threaten monogamy," by which they meant the keeping of secret mistresses. But others argued that the law should specify what they meant by "other practices."

Hence the controversy. Some legislators suggested that illegal cohabitation, adultery, wenching and extramarital love affairs should be included in the "other" category. Their opponents claimed such broad inclusion in the category blurred the distinction between law and ethics, taking moral considerations out of people's hands.

In the final version of the amendment, passed by the NPC Standing Committee on April 28, adultery, wenching and extramarital affairs are not listed as being a threat to monogamy.

The law does stipulate, however, that cohabitation with anyone other than one's spouse makes the cheating member of a married couple liable to pay compensation in the case of divorce.

In cases of wenching and extramarital affairs, Hu said the law gives way to ethical concerns that cannot be tried in court.

(China Daily 05/16/2001)