Beijing, Aug 19: In a major decision affecting the personal lives of millions of Chinese citizens, the government has decided to relax and amend marriage rules from October 01 this year. An adult Chinese male and female will be able to marry each other legally by only providing their ID cards and residence documents, and by signing a statement that they are single and not related, the new regulation said.

The couples need not produce a letter from their employers testifying to their unmarried status and will not have to first undergo a health examination, according to the new regulation issued by the state council, China's cabinet, yesterday. The regulation will annul the old version that was in effect in the world's most populous nation for nine years.

For the past several decades, government marriage offices required people to show letters provided by their employers to guarantee that they were qualified for marriage. This helped the government to control the number of marriages in the country. The new regulation says that people may take a health examination before marriage, but will not be forced to do so.

The marriage will be invalidated if one of the partners is shown to have a medical condition which, under the law would disqualify a marriage, such as leprosy or insanity.


One of the partners may apply for an annulment if the other suffers from such a disease before marriage and does not recover after. Bureau Report