Chinese couples divorcing in record numbers after being stuck home together due to coronavirus

After about a month of being stuck at home, some married couples in China are getting fed up with each other. So fed up, in fact, that they're rushing to get divorced, according to Global Times.

Marriage registration offices had been closed for some time, and reopened on March 1. Since then, they've barely been able to keep up with the number of divorce appointments people are scheduling.

"As a result of the epidemic, many couples have been bound with each other at home for over a month, which evoked the underlying conflicts, adding that the office had been closed for a month, therefore the office has seen an acutely increasing divorce appointment," one official told Global Times. "Usually the office would see a wave of divorcement after Spring Festival and the college entrance examination."

Offices in the city of Xi'an have seen an "unprecedented" number of divorce appointments.

Fortunately, not all of these couples who show up for divorce appointments end up going through with it. Some of the requests are impulsive responses to the stress of being quarantined for a long period of time due to the threat of a deadly and highly contagious virus.

Han [an official at a marriage office in Xi'an] said that due to long-time staying at home, the underlying conflicts might emerge and result in impulsive divorces. "We received some divorce appointments and they regretted it later," said Han.

Wang [an official of the registration office in Beilin district of Xi'an] said some young couples even decided to remarry when their divorce certificate is printing.

Han suggested couples be serious and prudent toward their marriage and avoid regret based in impulsive decision-making.

China is still by far the hardest nation hit by the coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan. It is believed to have been transferred from animals to humans, possibly due to the practice of eating wild animals in China, such as bats and snakes. The Chinese government recently banned farming and consumption of wild animals, something which also caused the SARS outbreak.