A Chinese woman has knocked the doors of a court after learning that her husband was infected with HIV before marriage and had concealed it from her all this while. After hearing the woman’s petition, the court in Shanghai’s Minhang District ruled in favour of her and annulled the couple’s marriage on Monday.
Notably, the plaintiff, known by her surname Li, and her ex, known by his surname Jiang, got married last June after discovering that she had fallen pregnant. A few days after the wedding, Jiang ‘confessed’ to his wife that he had suffered from AIDS for many years and had to take medication long-term. On knowing about his heath status, she went for an abortion and submitted her petition for an annulment to the court, Daily Mail reported.
During court proceedings, Jiang tried to convince her that it was ‘nearly impossible’ for her and their baby to catch the virus from him because of his medication. However, unable to accept her husband’s condition, Li was adamant on her decision.a
Interestingly, this case was one of the first marital disputes to be ruled under China’s new Civil Code, instead of the previous Marriage Law, which came into force on January 1, this year. The Civil Code stipulates that citizens must ‘truthfully inform’ their significant others if they have ‘major diseases’ before registering for marriage.
In a similar incident last week in India, a case was registered against four persons of a Madurai family for conducting the marriage of a man by hiding his HIV positive status and for denying property to his wife as promised. Police said that though the complainant got married to the accused in September 2016, it was only later that she came to know that he was HIV positive.