No need to spend a lot of money on investigating the other party’s extramarital affairs
At present, extra-marital affairs have become the biggest killer of marriage and the main reason that the relationship between husband and wife cannot be maintained.
There are three levels of unfaithful activity committed against the other spouse: affairs (mere adultery), cohabitation and bigamy. Bigamy is more serious than cohabitation and cohabitation is more serious than affairs. It’s true that extra-marital affair would hurt each other a lot; the aggrieved party would always want to find every way for the evidence of the other's extramarital affair in order to seek for punishment against the other party or maximize the benefits in the division of community property at the time of divorce. However, it’s not easy for the non-fault party to get conclusive evidence, but they are unwilling to stop there. Many even hire detectives to do the investigation, though detective’s business is illegal in China. Most of the time, there is only indirect evidence obtained with are almost useless to establish the finding of “committing cohabitation with another” and claim damages.
In legal practice, only love affairs with another cannot constitute “committing cohabitation with another” and no compensation could be granted if the fact that the other party is living with another cannot be established.
Also, it’s a misunderstanding that the aggrieved party may gain more than what he or she normally get if she can prove love affairs of the other party, article 46 of the Marriage Law stipulates that the aggrieved party shall be entitled to claim mental distress damages in the event that the other party committed bigamy, cohabitation with another, domestic violence and abandonment of family members. The law only provides for the above four situations to apply for damages, if it’s only the level of extramarital affair rather than the level of“cohabitation” that can be established, the claim of damages may not be granted.
