A man was sentenced to five months in jail for bigamy in Shenzhen’s Baoan District after his wife saw his mistress’ name inscribed on the family’s ancestral tomb, Xinhua reports.

Image courtesy of The Daily Sunshine

The marriage between Mr. Chen and Mrs. Zeng, originally from Hunan, had always been troubled as she was unable to produce a child and she had lied to him about her age, revealing that she was 3 years older than him only after they married. Starting in October 2010, Chen would frequently fail to come home at night and from February 2012 stopped coming home at all.

Twice in 2012, Mr. Chen appealed to a court in Nanshan District to get a divorce but failed on both occasions as it would have cost him 500,000 yuan.

In March this year, Mrs. Zeng heard that her husband had had a baby with a different woman the previous year and went to the hospital to see the record of the birth herself.

But the moment when Mrs. Zeng was finally compelled to see a lawyer came shortly after when, on a trip to their hometown in Hunan, she saw that on the family’s ancestral tomb was engraved not her own name but the name of Mr. Chen’s mistress, commonly known as a “xiaosan,” a Ms. Zhong.

A “xiaosan” is a different type of mistress to an “er’nai” in that a xiaosan has designs on eventually marrying their unavailable partner.

Mr. Chen and Ms. Zhong had met at a party in August 2011, after which they had a one-night stand. Ms. Zhong later discovered she was pregnant and, despite his reluctance, talked Chen into letting her have it. The baby girl was born in June last year.

Mr. Chen insisted that he never lived with Ms. Zhong so wasn’t a bigamist, but his protestations proved ineffective.