Dry Marriages (干婚)
Source: BackChina (倍可亲)
Since ancient times, marriage has been regarded as sacred—not merely a testament to romantic love, but a union between two families.
But somewhere along the way, something shifted. Intimacy between spouses has been replaced by overtime shifts, business trips, screen time, and conversations that have been compressed into two-word WeChat replies: “Hmm.” “Okay.”
This new kind of marriage has acquired a bleakly apt name: “dry marriage” (干婚).
It refers to a relationship where a couple is married in name but bypasses key rituals—no wedding, no parental introductions—and lives more like co-renting roommates than life partners.
Why has this “dry marriage” model taken root and begun to spread?
Love as Joint Venture
Outside civil affairs offices across China, you’ll find two contrasting scenes: On one side, wide-eyed couples in matching outfits, bouquets in hand; on the other, divorced couples standing in silence, expressionless as they queue.
These fractured tableaux have become the most honest portrait of modern Chinese marriage.
Once viewed as a life milestone, marriage today increasingly resembles a high-risk business venture.
In Shanghai, white-collar professionals have restructured marriage into a “limited liability company.” Prenups are the articles of incorporation. Mortgages become joint financing plans. Reproductive choices are debated like boardroom dividend schemes, with projected ROI calculated over years.
Back-end data from a major dating platform reveals a 470% increase over three years in searches for “prenuptial agreements,” while searches related to “wedding planning” have fallen by 23%.
A marriage registrar in Beijing’s Chaoyang District noted that new couples now ask more often about property division during divorce than about how to build a lasting relationship.
In Shenzhen’s tech district, a 32-year-old systems architect described his marriage as a “consolidated financial report.” He and his wife maintain separate accounts; even tutoring expenses for their child are split according to their pre-tax incomes.
At today’s divorce counters, couples show up with property deeds, bank statements, and tuition receipts from international schools—conspicuously absent are wedding photos.
The Rise of the “Dry Marriage”
Compared to traditional marriages, “dry marriages” seem to flourish mainly in China’s major cities. In metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, many young couples live in the same residential complex but on different floors, rarely even sharing a meal.
Law firms in Chaoyang report a surge in hyper-detailed prenuptial agreements. Beyond the usual property clauses, these documents now stipulate custody of pets, ownership of gaming accounts, and even gym membership transfers.
Such provisions are not necessarily signs of impending divorce. Rather, they attempt to draw precise boundaries—safety zones within which the marriage may endure.
Consequently, apps that manage marital logistics have become popular. These platforms assign chore points, set reminders for gift budgets on anniversaries, and calculate weekly “emotional connection quotas” based on overtime hours.
The marriage industry has responded with ingenuity. In Guangzhou’s Tianhe District, a domestic services company now offers a “Marriage Energy-Saver Package,” which includes weekly deep-cleaning, monthly delivery of semi-prepared meals, and even pre-written holiday cards.
The brochure’s slogan reads: “Extend the battery life of your marriage.”
In Chengdu’s Hi-Tech Zone, a psychology center has created a “Dry Marriage Index Assessment Form.” Metrics include WeChat response time, decline in mutual friends, and the date of the most recent couple selfie.
Interestingly, the higher a couple’s income bracket, the more likely they are to score high in “emotional energy-saving.”
Who Killed the Marriage?
According to a recent report from a Shanghai-based marriage research institute, dual-income couples’ average daily “effective communication time” has plummeted from 42 minutes in 2005 to just 17 minutes in 2023.
Those missing minutes have been absorbed by commuting, overtime, and work group chats.
In longitudinal studies, researchers found that more than 60% of messages exchanged between spouses consisted of “Okay” and “Got it,” while emoji use outpaced real-life hugs thirty to one.
At a leading hospital in Hangzhou, psychiatric data shows that 78% of patients seeking treatment for marital issues first presented with symptoms of workplace burnout.
A casefile from one attending psychiatrist reads: “Patient, age 32, employed in internet industry, returns home at 2 a.m. for six consecutive months—now experiences no emotional response toward spouse.”
These files read like autopsy reports for modern marriages, dissecting how intimacy was slowly eaten away by professional demands.
In the archives of the Tianhe Civil Affairs Bureau, the number of divorce filings citing “emotional erosion from daily life” rose 40% in 2022.
Officials noted that many divorced couples still had their wedding portraits displayed in nearby photography studios—images usually no more than three years old. The carefully chosen gowns and retouched smiles fade faster than the photo paper itself.
Contractual Marriage and AI Spouses?
Yet human beings, by their nature, need warmth and emotional connection. When that cannot be found in a partner, other substitutes emerge.
Artificial intelligence has stepped into the void. One recent product, a “virtual companion system,” uses real-time emotional analysis to generate comforting dialogue—and can simulate the sensation of a warm embrace.
On the beta test list for this system, 70% of applicants were tech professionals with annual incomes over one million yuan. Their common thread: “I need emotional support, but I don’t have time for real relationships.”
Meanwhile, some young people are navigating between tradition and modernity by drafting their own pre-marital charters: financial independence, reproductive autonomy, and a rule mandating two shared dinners per week.
These documents—part love contract, part business MOU—are now standard among urban elites. Lawyers report that inquiries into such agreements have doubled annually.
A big data firm in Chengdu published an emotional analytics report showing that among people born after 2000, acceptance of “contractual marriage” has reached 43%, far exceeding other generations.
Their phones are filled with relationship management apps capable of calculating the ROI of each romantic engagement.
When asked about their ideal marriage, many wrote on the survey: “It should be like a phone plan—upgrade or cancel anytime.”
This leaves us with a sobering question: How did one of humanity’s oldest forms of intimacy devolve into something so cold, so transactional?