Hunt Love Down and Kill It

Max Wu | Dec 13, 2011 10:00 am | 2 comments | 4883 reads

Looking for love in a city like Beijing certainly takes effort, but for many it’s the challenge of keeping that love that’s driving them mad. Last month, we told you about a new institute for desperate wives who are trying to defend their marriage against intruders. Well, if you thought the RMB 100,000 tuition for the “wife academy” was outrageous, we’re curious what you’ll think about the burgeoning industry of “anti-mistress services,” where wives pay an average of RMB 150,000 to save their marriages.

According to Chinese experts, mistresses are the leading factor for China’s rising divorce rate. Between July and September of this year, China’s divorce rate was 12% higher than for the same period last year – and Beijing leads the country in broken marriages. With their marriage and financial future on the line, it seems that Beijing wives are more terrified than ever of the xiaosan (小三, the latest term for a mistress). The traditional approach, of course, is for wives to angrily confront their husbands with evidence of their illicit liaisons, but enterprising “anti-mistress” entrepreneurs are putting a new spin on the game. Now suspicious wives can employ professionals to hunt down the little homewrecker and break up the affair without the husband knowing anything.

To satisfy their client, the anti-mistress professionals must effectively smother the extramarital love affair. In this sense, their job involves more creativity than that of a private detective who merely follows the cheating pair and snaps a few incriminating photos. According to Beijing Evening News, one Beijing firm guarantees they can break up any adulterous relationship with their three-step business model. As you’ll see, wives who feel that their marriage is at stake are willing to sign off on some practices that are clearly illegal.

STEP 1: Let the Hunt Begin

a. Install a device on the husband’s mobile phone so that all messages go to the wife’s email (RMB 20,000)
b. Eavesdropping: Analyze the husband’s conversations with his mistress. Bring in psychologists to educate the wife on what’s missing in their marriage and how to bring him home. (Price will vary)
c. Investigate the mistress’s history: her family and upbringing, her educational background, her relationship history and whether she is seeing any other married men. (RMB 8,000)

STEP 2: Observing the Prey

a. How often and where the couple meets up. Photos, voice recording, etc.
b. The nature of their relationship
c. Monitoring exactly where they are at all times

STEP 3: Facilitate the Breakup of the Affair

a. Bring in the “secret weapon” – a guy with a perfect record of tempting mistresses away from the husband. (RMB 100,000 + add-on expenses such as BMWs and luxury clothing/accessories)
b. Other methods

After you take a minute to admire the creativity of this strategy, think about the potential of this service. Wouldn’t this trick work just as well to help cheating husbands who want to divorce their wives? Couldn’t they hire the handsome “secret weapon” to break up their own marriage? (If this interloper is so irresistible, surely a wife would be as vulnerable as a mistress to his charms.) Meanwhile, an unfaithful wife could hire a hottie to lure her rich husband into a compromising position so she would have the upper hand when she asks for a divorce. Does the anti-mistress service help wives get their family back or does it work against them? Or is it just another powerful weapon that works in favor of anybody who has the money to hire them?

Love is already pretty complicated, but society seems to be suggesting that it is not difficult enough, i.e. “If love is so scarce, why don’t we make it even more precious? Let’s all make it a war and only the most tactical player gets the reward.” Of course, by the time all the plotting and gamesmanship is over, one might question what has actually been saved (love? marriage? face?), but that’s a different matter altogether.

What do you think? Leave your comment below.

Photos: Weibo user 2370838661, img1.gtimg.com

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bluefish's picture bluefish Submitted by Guest on Tue, 12/13/2011 - 20:00

Ultimately, it seems to me that this isn't much more than a sophisticated expression of the complete and utter self-absorbance (not selfishness) that plagues this whole society.

The selfish are the drivers who actually see that they are going to cause inconvenience and just do it anyway. The self-absorbed are far more common. They're the woman wandering down the middle of the street when there's an empty sidewalk 5 feet away–and who is genuinely stunned if someone gets angry because she never once thought that another human being might need to be in the street. She doesn't mean anyone particular harm, but she's utterly self-absorbed. She might be very generous and thoughtful in the right context, or when someone is right in front of her. But the default mode is "self-absorbed."

The couples described here most likely didn't marry for love, but for self--what they could get out of the relationship. The husbands aren't considering anything but their own self when they go running around. The wives are obsessed with how to protect self--and the reference to their "financial future" is a key phrase there. I completely agree with the suspicion that this could turn into just yet another Chinese "who's got the biggest wallet?" game, the end result of which is always broken lives, broken hearts, broken relationships and nothing ultimately to show for it but buckets of money trashed as surely as if it had all been shoved down the nearest sewer grate. The person may get what they "want," but usually find out that they wanted was poison. The revenge that seemed so sweet before it began is bitter when it's over. It is a wicked, stupid, and self-destructive way to live.

(Let me put in the caveat that I am sure there are some wives who genuinely love their husbands and families and are trying to save their marriage without only self-absorbed motives. But that's not a normal marriage relationship here.)

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