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While pre-nuptial agreements are increasingly common in the U.S., here in China marital contracts are rare. But they aren't unheard of.

Last week a couple from the southern province of Hunan hit the headlines when their marriage plans fell apart following the bride-to-be's insistence that her boyfriend sign a pre-nuptial agreement.

The contract stipulated that he would be fined the equivalent of nearly 30 thousand dollars if he was unfaithful. When he was presented with the pre-nuptial agreement, the man called off the marriage saying that if his fiancée didn't trust him, there was no point tying the knot.

We wanted to find out what other people think of signing pre-nuptial agreements. Here’s what people had to say in today's Straight from the Street.

Now, just how many hours a week do you work? Well here in China the official forty-hour work week has been in place over 15 years. Back in 1995 it was decide to abolish the practice of half day work on Saturdays and introduce the five day week with 8 hours work per day. In theory working beyond this should be compensated with overtime. But is that really the case? With so much competition for jobs today who is going to risk losing their coveted position for complaining about working extra hours?

Official figures from China's civil affairs department show that over 1.7 million couples porced in China in 2009, up more than 10 percent on the previous year. And those figures include only those couples porced by civil affairs departments, meaning those porced in court were not included. That hike is more than the 9 percent increase in the marriage rate, although overall the number of marriages - almost 11 and half million - far exceeded porces.

Still, over the past three years, the year-on-year growth rate of registered porces was higher than the growth rate of registered marriages. And the number of porces in absolute terms has rocketed from just over 500,000 at the beginning of the century to today’s figure of more than three times as much. Given this seemingly unstoppable rise we went out and asked ordinary Chinese people what they think more people are getting porced.

David Moser meets guests to discuss President Obama's upcoming visit to China, and major talking points on Sino-US relations.

About our guests:

Xu Qinduo is a graduate of China's "cradle of diplomats," Beijing Foreign Affairs College, and has a strong interest in Chinese politics and international affairs.  He is co-host of the influential talk show Today on CRI (China Radio International), where he has interviewed a wide-ranging number of guests discussing Chinese politics, culture, and economics.

Jean-Marc Blanchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at San Francisco State University, and is currently a Visiting Scholar at the  School of International Studies, Peking University.  He is co-editor of two books, China's Multidimensional Diplomacy after 9/11 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield-Lexington Books, forthcoming, 2010), and Harmonious World and China's New Foreign Policy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield-Lexington Books, 2008).  He is also a Board Member and Book Review Editor for the Journal of Chinese Political Science.

David Moser meets guests to discuss President Obama's upcoming visit to China, and major talking points on Sino-US relations.

About our guests:

Xu Qinduo is a graduate of China's "cradle of diplomats," Beijing Foreign Affairs College, and has a strong interest in Chinese politics and international affairs.  He is co-host of the influential talk show Today on CRI (China Radio International), where he has interviewed a wide-ranging number of guests discussing Chinese politics, culture, and economics.

Jean-Marc Blanchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at San Francisco State University, and is currently a Visiting Scholar at the  School of International Studies, Peking University.  He is co-editor of two books, China's Multidimensional Diplomacy after 9/11 (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield-Lexington Books, forthcoming, 2010), and Harmonious World and China's New Foreign Policy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield-Lexington Books, 2008).  He is also a Board Member and Book Review Editor for the Journal of Chinese Political Science.