Research also shows that a higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita does not necessarily increase the optimism of a country. (Photo : Getty Images)
Chinese companies that are focusing on dissuading mistresses from destroying families are using variety of methods to convince women who enter into a relationship with married men that they have other options.
One method used by a Chongqing-based company, run by Luo Rong, is to hire tall and handsome men to pretend to be wealthy and be interested in the mistress so she could be distracted from her relationship with a married man. But Luo says despite feigning interest in a bid to "sabotage" the married man-mistress relationship, the company sees to it that it does not use illegal ways such as stalking, monitoring or threatening the "other woman" or mistress, reports WomenofChina.
Another Shenzhen-based company, run by Kang Na, created a new social circle for mistresses, similar to Luo's strategy, to get these women to meet other single men, in the process helping preserve marriages.
About 80 percent of failed marriages in China is because of mistresses which results in a steady increase in divorces in the past 12 years. Whatsonweibo reports that the divorce rate in China stands at 3.9 percent in 2015 as 3.63 million couples divorced, according to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Divorce is quite prevalent that the line "Have you divorced today?" is a common joke among Chinese. Meanwhile, wives who have not yet divorced their husbands have resorted to physically harming the mistresses, as can be seen in a number of YouTube postings.
This situation, brought to fore during the Second Chinese Marriage and Family Counseling Summit in Shanghai in October 2015, led to the release of a convention on the marriage and family counseling industry in the country.
However, how to open counseling services does not come cheap. Training courses to help dissuade mistresses from becoming family wrecking balls cost 300,000 yuan or $46,235.
Experts in the field are called "third person dissuader" or "mistress discourager." Most of them are found in big Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu and Shenzhen. The number of companies and individuals offering such services has boomed that a Google search using the two terms would yield 80,000 links.
Despite the cost, Ming Li, chief counselor of the Weiqing Group, stresses, "Our goal is to contribute to the development of a harmonious society and carry forward positive energy."
Since Weiqing opened 15 years ago, it has saved 5,135 marriages, stopped 5,859 extramarital affairs and persuaded 6,270 third parties from destroying marriages and families. If they work 365 days a year, they could convince 1.65 couples to remarry, reunite 3.65 families, save one marriage and discourage 1.5 other women daily, estimates Ming.
