The BBC reports,
Couples who want to apply for a marriage license in Beijing will have to dress smartly in the future, or risk being turned away. The city’s Civil Affairs Bureau has announced a new rule stipulating that couples won’t be issued a license to wed if they show up in shorts, T-shirts or other casual wear, the state newspaper Beijing Daily reports.
The bureau’s marriage registration director, Han Mingxi, says people aren’t showing sufficient respect for the process. “It is not unusual to see couples registering in shorts and slippers. It shows their carelessness and disrespect for marriage,” he tells the paper. “From one glance you can see that marriage registration is being treated as a casual affair, and this is prone to many problems.”
The “many problems” refers to China’s divorce rate, which has been growing for more than a decade. This has the bureau asking experts to “propose methods and ways to promote marriage and family happiness,” in order to stem the tide of millions of divorces, 3.6 million in 2014 alone.
It may be true that the registration process is being treated “as a casual affair,” but that’s not why marriages are failing at such a high rate in China. These marriages are “prone to many problems” because God has been left out of them.
God has a lot to say about relationships, commitment, and sacrificial love. When we disregard the power of God’s love, our marriages are going to suffer. Sadly, the best the Chinese can come up with to help these struggling marriages is to enact a stricter dress code for the application process, when it’s not a dress code, but a love code that’s needed.
When we know Jesus’ forgiveness, we are empowered and motivated to be more forgiving. When we understand Jesus’ sacrifice, we are empowered and motivated to be more sacrificial. When we’ve experienced Jesus’ love, we are empowered and motivated to be more loving. What the marriages in China need is Jesus.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
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“No shorts’ rule for Beijing marriage licence applicants,” by News from Elsewhere, BBC Monitoring, June 3, 2016.