Social media in China has been left awestruck by a story of serendipity that brought a couple together with a car accident. A 36-year-old man, surnamed Li, and his 23-year-old wife tied the knot in central China’s Hunan province in February. When they “met” each other in December 2023, he was the driver of a…
The number of marriages in China continued to slide last year as the country faced a worsening demographic crisis. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry with a written request for comment. Why It Matters After seven years of decline, China’s birth rate ticked slightly upward last year, a shift analysts have attributed to…
new video loaded: Thai Couples Marry After Same-Sex Marriage Is Legalized transcript Back transcript Thai Couples Marry After Same-Sex Marriage Is Legalized Hundreds of people were married during a mass wedding in Bangkok as Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. “It means the world to us and to Thai…
A Chinese mistress paid a “divorce fee” of 1.2 million yuan (US$165,000) to the legal wife of her married lover, only to have her petition for a refund rejected by the court after the wife accepted the money but refused to divorce. In December 2013, a man surnamed Han, based in Shishi, Fujian province in…
A man in China was told by his fiancée that he needed to burn the “marriage bed” of her and her ex-husband so that they could get married, but it turned out to be a scam. The man from northern China’s Tianjin municipality, surnamed Wang, met his girlfriend surnamed Li on an online dating platform….
Recently released Chinese government statistics show marriages continue to decline, with only 4.75 million couples registering in the third quarter. Chinese policymakers are urgently trying to address a plummeting birth rate, fearing that the rapidly aging workforce and burden on social safety nets will drag on the world’s second-largest economy. Despite various initiatives, including financial…
Over five years, Daizy Maan thinks she has been on “around 150 to 200 dates”. “I’ve swiped so much on dating apps that I started wondering whether I might get carpal tunnel,” she told the ABC. Explaining the perils of modern dating to her mum, the 30-year-old said dating apps “were just like matchmaking in…
A city in southern China has launched bold initiatives and slogans to encourage marriage and boost birth rates, igniting widespread controversy. In October, Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, unveiled the country’s first “marriage-themed” cultural street. The historic street showcases both Chinese and Western wedding scenes, providing visitors with plenty of photo opportunities. However, what…
The following story has been selected by AFP’s chief editors for re-publication as one of the best of the week Pakistan’s traditional matchmakers play a revered role in moulding daughters into potential brides, but marriage apps marketing themselves as halal are offering women a new route to finding a husband. “When I saw my colleague…