It’s time to go home for Spring Festival!
Dear single friends,
A marriage storm is coming,
are you ready?
According to the survey report on the current situation of forced marriage in China in 2016 released by the Health and Physical Development Center of the China Youth Committee, the forced marriage rate around China is no less than 70%! Among the surveyed youth from 25 to 30, the forced marriage rate was as high as 86%...
‘How about renting a couple to go home for the Spring Festival?’
Renting-couple services, came into being.
In the ‘renting-couple agreement’ searched on the Internet, we can see all kinds of strange terms, including ‘in front of another people, party B must address party A by nickname, look at party A deeply, and take the arm of party A to show love’, ‘party A shall not have physical contact with party B for a long time’... This kind of clause is real, and ‘renting-couple agreement’ is very popular! But are you really aware of the risks of the renting-couple agreement?
Ⅰ. There is no way to make collections
According to the information on the Internet, the price of renting a girlfriend is basically RMB 3000 per time or not less than RMB 500 per day, which is not cheap at all, so it is likely that the other party will not give money after one party finish the work. Litigation? It is okay to sue to ask the other party to perform the agreement to pay, but the agreement may be invalid! Those who pay close attention to WeChat accounts for promoting the services of Mak&Gu&Tsang Lawfirm may have guessed the reason. Yeah, although there is no specific provision in the law for the ‘renting-couple agreement’, according to the civil law, civil legal acts that violate public order and good covenant are invalid. The aforementioned agreement is likely with personal attributes, such as holding hands, kissing, and so on. Therefore, there is a high probability that this kind of agreement will be deemed invalid because it violates public order and good covenant.
There is one kind of embarrassing situation. Some rented girlfriends are not only beautiful and smooth-tongued, but also very responsible. Thus, ‘the future parents-in-law’ are happy to give their ‘daughter-in-law’ bracelet or red paper containing money as a gift. If the aforementioned girl is not willing to return the bracelet, how to do? Revocation of the conditional gift by litigation or another way? Try it if the gift is patrimonial bracelet. But if it’s just a few money, litigation costs, risk and effort may cost you a lot of money and energy.
Ⅱ. Take responsibility that does not belong to you
Although the renting-partner agreement is about renting a couple, it does not belong to rental agreement, because the rental object is an individual but not goods , and its nature is closer to the labor relationship between individuals. Therefore, the responsibility can be determined by referring to the employment contract, i.e. the tenant is the employer and the person being rent is the employee.
In this case, according to the tort liability law, if an employee suffers harm due to providing personal services, the employee and the employer shall bear the liability according to their respective fault. If the employee hurts another due to providing personal services, the employer shall bear vicarious liability even if he or she has no fault and may recover from the employee at fault after compensating the victim. That is to say, if the ‘wife’ who is brought home for Spring Festival falls and twists her feet when pasting couplets, or cut her hands when helping someone to make food and so on, the employer may bear responsibility even if distributing responsibility according to fault. And if the ‘wife’ gets into trouble and hurts another, there is no doubt that the employer needs to bear the external responsibility for compensation, but whether he or she can recover from the ‘wife’ depends on whether the ‘wife’ has fault.
Ⅲ. Safe is not guaranteed
In 2013, Han from Henan, a young woman, was lured to a remote town and robbed of RMB 1,300 by Cheng from Wuhan who rented girlfriend at a high price of RMB 20,000 for a counterfeit marriage.
In 2016, in order to conceal his homosexuality, Zheng from Jiaozuo employed He to pretend to be his girlfriend and get married. But when He asked for a higher price, Zheng strangled she in anger.
In 2019, Pan employed Tong from a renting-couple WeChat group to pretend to be his girlfriend for RMB 800 per day. Later, Pan raped Tong several times in a hotel using negotiating the details of the false marriage as an excuse.
Those poor girls certainly didn’t expect that they were raped and beaten or even killed because they accepted to pretend to be one’s girlfriend. ‘Renting-couple’ has no safeguard and supervise, which would be giving the keys to the chicken coop to the fox and regrettable if the other party has evil intention.
It’s said that there are also some ‘renting-couple agreements’ for prostitution and whoring in the name of renting girlfriend or boyfriend. Editor searched online and found the word ‘non-green rental’, i.e. the rented one is willing to provide sexual services. They think online rental platform is ‘lawless’ and renting-partner service is ‘gray area’. Actually, such an agreement is invalid, and both parties have violated the provisions of the law on punishment for public security administration, which can result in detention of not less than 10 days but not more than 15 days and a fine of not more than RMB 5000 if the circumstances are serious.
If the renting-couple platform intentionally uses the Internet to publish illegal information about recruiting prostitutes and its circumstances are serious, it shall be the crime of illegal use of information network in the criminal law. If it indeed carry out off-line introduction of prostitution, the platform shall also be the crime of introduction of prostitution, and shall bear punishment according to the provisions on heavier punishment for the aforementioned two crime. As for the platform that do not recruit prostitutes intentionally, if it finds that its user publishes illegal information such as ‘non-green renting-partner service’, and choose to turn a blind eye, i.e. do not fulfill its responsibility to stop transmission and elimination about the relevant records, it may face suspension of business for rectification, website closure, revocation of business license and business license, and a fine of less than RMB 500,000 in accordance with the Cybersecurity Law. The law is no laughing matter, so every platform should remember that better safe than sorry.
After reading this article, do you still want to rent someone to go home for the Spring Festival?
Instead of renting one to play along with you, try to simplify your life and let go of happiness or loneliness.
