Hello, I’m Jiang Lai. Before beginning, I want to tell you about one person.

Fang Zhuren, from Linyi in Shandong, became famous through stand-up comedy in 2025. On a recent variety show, she described something outsiders found hard to understand.

She divorced in 2024. To leave a long and oppressive marriage, she surrendered the house and land to her former husband. She now wanted to separate her household registration from his family household, establish a household of her own in the same village, and retain membership in the village collective and related land rights.

Staff patiently offered several routes. But she had no house or homestead locally and did not qualify for a separate household; her parents had died, so she could not move registration back to her natal family. She could join a collective household, or remain in her former husband’s household and receive a separate registration page.

She refused. Remaining registered in her former husband’s household felt as if she had never left the marriage. Finally she asked a staff member: “You’re a woman too. You should understand me.”

After the program aired, the story developed. Fang later moved her registration to a home she owned in Shenyang. In a video apologizing to the staff, she said, “I was truly lucky to get this far.”

Her difficulty was this: after a marriage ends, how should a person’s registered place and local membership be rearranged?

That leads to this episode’s question:when marriage can determine personal status and eligibility, what gendered outcomes follow?