Marriages fall victim to rapid social change HANOI - Ten years of rapid economic and social change have been blamed for breaking down the traditional family, with a survey suggesting as many as one in three Vietnamese marriages now ends in divorce. The survey - conducted last month by the Van Hoa (Culture) newspaper - also interviewed couples from 900 broken marriages and concluded an emerging assertiveness in women was behind more than one-third of divorces, with disputes between couples and their relatives accounting for 20 per cent more. Officials at the Ministry of Justice declined to release statistics on marriage break-ups, but said they doubted the figures quoted by Van Hoa were accurate. Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, deputy president of the Ho Chi Minh Women's Union, also dismissed the figures but agreed the rate of divorce had soared. "More than 10 per cent of marriages in Ho Chi Minh City fail and four out of five divorces are requested by women," she said. "Women mostly complain of their husband's adultery and their spending of the family's money on girlfriends and alcohol." Anecdotal evidence suggests women are increasingly involved in extra-marital affairs. Their abandonment of strict sexual mores further challenges Vietnam's image of itself as a society disciplined by traditional, conservative values. "I hate my mother because she abandoned us for another man," said 15-year-old Hoang Anh Thang. "I no longer believe in our so-called social norms and traditions. My experience is the exact opposite of what I have been told." Dr Nguyen Minh Hoa, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City's University of Social Science and Humanities, said families were now at greater risk of breaking up. "Our moral values and traditional ways are being changed by our modern lifestyle," he said. Le Minh Nga, director of a family and marriage counselling centre in Ho Chi Minh City, said her organisation receives more than 50 calls a day. She said money problems, lack of sexual fulfilment and disagreements over raising children were the main causes of tension in marriage, and that couples were increasingly reluctant to tolerate unhappy relationships. By Huw Watkin - South China Morning Post - April 8, 2000.