Brief Excerpts from NYTIMES.COM

In July 2019, Ms. Liu said, she complained to her mother-in-law that Mr. Dou had stayed out all night playing cards. The elder woman lectured her son, who flew into a rage and slapped and punched Ms. Liu, she said.

A survey conducted by the All-China Women’s Federation in 2011 showed that about one in four women had suffered physical or verbal abuse, or had their freedoms restricted by their partners. But activists, citing interviews with abused women, estimate the numbers are far higher, especially after millions were placed under lockdown during the pandemic.

Ms. Liu filed for divorce in the Zhecheng County court in Henan Province, showing the video of the boutique beating as evidence. The court denied her request, saying Mr. Dou had not agreed to the divorce and that they should seek mediation. 

“It had never occurred to me that the courts could not directly grant me a divorce at the first hearing,” Ms. Liu said.

In a bid to pressure the court, Ms. Liu uploaded the video of her beating to WeChat, China’s dominant social media platform. Thousands of Chinese internet users rallied to her defense, and a hashtag about her case was viewed more than a billion times on the microblogging site Weibo.

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