CONFIDENT, high-earning Chinese women are shaking up traditional gender roles in marriage, sometimes leading to divorce in a society where men financially supported by women are usually despised. Nie Xin reports.

Mu Liming, an ambitious 32-year-old communications manager for an international company, recently divorced her husband of five years because her income far outstripped his and they no longer had much in common.

"Family life is getting too boring!" Mu tells Shanghai Daily in an interview. "We have less and less in common to talk about. He is always complaining that I don't have time to take care of the family, cook for him and keep him company."

Discussing reasons for the divorce, Mu says it's mainly because of the conjugal income gap - She earns around 30,000 yuan a month (US$4,706), far more than her husband Li Hua who is an IT worker in a small local company. Mu has steadily advanced and job-hopped, while her husband has remained in basically the same position.

"I tried to encourage him to be more ambitious, but I feel so disappointed that there was almost no change in so many years," Mu says.

The couple have a three-year-old daughter and they haven't decided who will take the custody.

Mu and quite a few women like her are earning more than their husbands and boyfriends in an unsettling of tradition and gender roles. This can cause conflict, estrangement, divorce, and end an engagement - or in some cases, a new balance in which both parties make it work.

As always, there's an old Chinese saying that applies: nan zhu wai, nu zhu nei (?D?÷ía???÷?ú), which means the man or husband is responsible for earning money to support the family, while woman or wife is responsible for doing housework. In Confucian tradition, a woman doesn't need to earn money but she must take care of the home and children.

'Eat soft rice'

Though many women work outside the home today, there is still a strong and widespread belief that the husband should earn more than the wife. For a man to earn less is unmanly and humiliating, a loss of face.

For a woman to earn more is unfeminine and unseemly; people will think she married the wrong man and she may think so as well.

If a man relies on a woman for support, he is said, contemptuously, to chi ruan fan (3?èí·1), or eat soft rice.

But quite a few women are earning more than their spouses. Women's improved career job opportunities, earning power and social status mean they have more financial independence and opportunities to attain their objectives in life. Money makes it happen and women are more confident and self-reliant. It leads some to divorce and hopes they will eventually marry a richer and more interesting man.

"This old concept that men must earn more than women must be broken since today men and women are supposed to have equal social status and work opportunities," says sociology professor Gu Jun at Shanghai University. "No matter who shoulders most financial responsibility for the family, there is no right or wrong."

Some Chinese women are making it big financially.

According to a Hurun wealth report (a widely acknowledged report on tracking China's entrepreneurs) released in 2011, among 28 female billionaires in the world, two-thirds of them, including four of the top five, are from the Chinese mainland.

"According to recent research about China, in all the divorce cases today, when women sue, 80 percent are due to financial problems," Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of the Huron Report, says. "Now you can see how important money is to women and to marriage."

For Mu, who recently got divorced, money is a symbol of other values.

"Divorcing over financial problems doesn't simply mean that I earn more than my husband," she says. "It's about the gap in our concepts about the values of a career and what's worth pursuing in life."

Mu's ex-husband echoed Mu's view.

"What pushed me to make the final decision to divorce is not simply the income gap but less and less respect from my wife and her parents. They question my value in the society and family just because I earn less than my wife, and I can't endure that anymore," Li says.

When a woman tips the financial scales before marriage, wedlock itself may be doomed.

Joyce Wang, a 29-year-old secretary in a German pharmaceutical company, is reconsidering whether to marry her boyfriend, a freelance photographer. The biggest problem is that she earns around 10,000 yuan a month and he usually earns 7,000 to 8,000 yuan, but sometimes nothing at all.

"If your situation was reversed, this would not have been a problem at all," Wang says. "But my parents, relatives and even friends, who have traditional attitudes, say our future relationship is unstable due to my boyfriend's low income."

The issue of unequal income and traditional roles generates considerable debate.

On the Internet there is heated discussion on popular communities such as liba.com, where people gather to share their views about life including love and marriage. There is a "leftover" (unmarried over age 30) woman called Graceblue007 shared her sad blind-dating experience.

She quickly fell for a man who earns half as much as hers, but he quickly rebuffed her, citing income disparity. He feared he would not be able to "control" an economically strong wife.

Many people told Graceblue007 that the man wasn't worth marrying since he lacked confidence and ambition. Some said he might have used money as an excuse because he didn't love her well enough.

In another recent case, a high-earning woman took her problems to televised conflict-resolution program "Lady Help" at Shanghai Education Television. She is a senior manager at a foreign company, earning tens of thousand of yuan a month, but her husband works in a public-sector organization and earns only several thousand yuan. Because she is very busy, her husband does most of the housework and cares for the children.

The woman described the situation and her husband's low salary as unsatisfactory. The housework made him fussy and feminine and they had little in common, she said, calling the marriage "torture."

But she received little support and was generally criticized by the audience in which many people said she was cruel and snobbish. Without her husband's support and devotion, she would not be able to perform well in work and achieve a good position.

The advice she got: improve your attitude and be grateful.

Making it work

Unequal earning power doesn't inevitably erode a relationship, but much depends on the personalities of the couple.

Donna Jiang is a 36-year-old Shanghai entrepreneur who believes that her hard work can bring her family what they want - more money, better quality of life, independence and respect.

Four years ago, Jiang quit her job in a logistics company, and opened a women's clothing shop. At that time her husband, also working at the logistics company, was earning a higher salary.

Now she earns more, about 20,000 yuan a month. "Not everyone is lucky enough to be born with a golden spoon in their mouth. When an ordinary woman born to an ordinary family marries an ordinary man, the only way to living a good life is to rely on herself," Jiang says.

Every month Jiang goes alone to Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province and Hong Kong to source clothes and accessories. It's exhausting and she walks and works nonstop. At her shop, she works almost every day without weekends or holidays.

"Hard work brings me what I want - luxury hand bags and shoes, oversea trips with my parents and husband. And these were hard to imagine when I was young and my family couldn't afford," she says.

A year ago, Jiang's husband lost his job when his company cut staff. Since then he has been assisting Jiang in managing the store.

"The financial status in my family has changed. My wife is now the dominant earner, but it doesn't destroy our relationship," Jiang's husband Wu Yuanhai says. "We are now working harder together for this family business."

Women and money

"Money is important to all people, definitely including women. However, I think money brings different things to males and females. To a man, money represents power, desire and position in society; but for a woman, money brings security, marriage and happiness," Shanghai director He Nian says.

In November he will stage a new drama "Women Must Have Money," which discusses women and wealth and how women's relationship with money changes their lives.

"Women might not be happy if they have money, but men must be happy if they are wealthy. This is a big topic not merely about wealth, but also about sexual relations. The key to a successful and stable relationship is a shared concept of value," He says.

With the society progressing and women's social and economic status improving, "Today it's hard to avoid topics like 'well done is not better than well married,' 'leftover' women, prenuptial agreement, property disputes and divorce lawsuits," says Chen Wan-ning, the planner of the play. "The issues are important for both men and women."