Shanghai (AFP)

When the man she married ten years ago started to return late, well after midnight, "Echo" had trouble understanding. Until she searched the phone of her husband, a Shanghai entrepreneur.

Tempting messages from other women clogged her WeChat account, China's main messaging app with more than a billion users.

WeChat and other platforms have helped revolutionize personal relationships in China. But they are also accused of having undermined many marriages by facilitating the drag.

In a country where marriage remains the norm, the number of divorces has exploded in the past decade. This development, linked to multiple factors, prompted the government to pass a law in May requiring couples to "deliberate" beforehand for a month before a separation.

"Meeting people has become easier. It is possible that there are temptations," observes Echo, who prefers not to reveal his complete identity. Today, she consults with her husband a marriage counselor.

Sex outside marriage is nothing new in China, where the sex industry and the hostess bar is thriving. According to a 2015 study by a renowned Chinese researcher, 34.8% of men had had extra-marital relationships compared to only 11.8% in 2010.

The infidelity debate went viral in April when star model Zhou Yangqing revealed that her boyfriend, Taiwanese singer Show Lo, had used WeChat and other platforms to seduce many women.

Technology adds to the socio-economic difficulties of weighing on couples, says Zhu Shenyong, marriage counselor in Shanghai.

Difficulties that range from increasing financial and professional pressures to more frequent business trips, including interference from in-laws and the fact that Chinese women are less and less willing to support a marriage that is struggling.

- Easy dating -

"Chinese society is growing too fast, extremely fast," he said. "We have quickly become a relatively affluent society, but material happiness means working more and spending less time building and preserving marriage."

Many let off steam thanks to online cruising, according to Zhu. He cites a function from WeChat, "People near me", often used for easy dating. But even a perfectly innocent use of such popular messaging can tear couples apart.

Mr. Zhu remembers a recent case he attended to, a man and a woman contacted for work. "The man said: you are divorced, it turns out that I also want to divorce. After talking about business and signing a contract, they went out for a drink and ended up getting together." WeChat "makes dating incredibly easy".

The number of marriages increased by almost 14% between 1998 and 2018, and exceeds 10 million per year, according to official figures. But that of divorces has quadrupled over this same period to reach 4.5 million per year.

Messaging apps are often the common thread running through marital infidelities, thinks Dai Pengjun, a Shanghai private investigator who specializes in investigating suspected spouses.

His business has flourished in recent years and he currently employs seven people to handle a dozen cases each month across the country, 40% of which involve fickle wives. They must perform spinning, surveillance and photograph the "targets".

- "More and more connections" -

"I have thought a lot about why there are more and more connections," says Dai. "Is it because of a lower morality? I do not believe it. It is very much linked to the material conditions of people's lives and to technological progress".

In some cases, Mr. Dai discovered that men he was watching could have not only one but two long-term extramarital relationships, sometimes resulting in the birth of children.

Lack of education is also an issue, says Zhu. "Our sex education begins in primary school, but there is no education for love and marriage."

In the media, the Covid-19 pandemic has fueled speculation as to whether there would be a divorce boom with the long confinements imposed on couples.

But for Echo, the experience on the contrary gave the couple time to think. She is optimistic and admits: "Sometimes I even feel grateful towards other women".

© 2020 AFP