A person's wedding night should be one of the happiest moments in his or her life, an old Chinese saying goes.

Getting married is traditionally considered to be the most important event in a person's life -- while divorce is regarded as disgraceful.

The facts seem to be no longer bearing the saying out.

An unprecedented 100,000 Guangdong Province residents were divorced last year.

The figure represents an increase of 33,754 people, or 52.6 per cent, over figures from 2003, according to sources from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Civil Affairs.

Both the number of divorcees and the rate of increase have broken records in the province's history.

And it was women who were more active in divorce proceedings last year -- making up 70 per cent of cases filed, said an official in charge of marriage and divorce registration yesterday.

Guangzhou's Jinan University Professor Song Yaohong attributed the sharp growth to increasing work pressure, which meant people had less time to work at their marriages.

One recent survey found that 60 per cent of family break-ups were caused by work pressures leaving little time for love.

It is not all about overwork. A third of break-ups happened because of infidelity, Song said.

The remaining 20 per cent broke up because of poor sex lives or disparities in social status between couples.

Song predicted the trend would continue.

He urged couples to spend more time with each other even when they have been married for a couple of years.

"Chinese people should conform to traditional morality and stick to family life," Song said.

Simplified divorce procedures have also been blamed for the increase. Since October 2003, couples have no longer needed certificates from their work units or companies to apply for divorce.

In the provincial capital Guangzhou alone, more than 20,000 people were divorced last year, up 59 per cent from 2003 and accounting for 20 per cent of the province's total.

Last year 1.2 million Guangdong residents got married, the first time more than 600,000 marriages had taken place within a year.

"That means 16 out of every 1,000 people got married last year," said the official.

The number of local residents who married foreigners, compatriots from Taiwan Province and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions continued to grow.

A total of 9,149 Guangdong residents married people from overseas last year, up 554 from a year ago.

Of them, 7,036 were women marrying overseas men, and 2,113 were local men.

(China Daily June 10, 2005)