About 30 percent of surveyed wives of gay men choose to file for divorce, according to a study released on Thursday.
China has 16 million such wives, said the study citing previous research.
The three-year study of 173 spouses found that 90 percent of those who file for divorce suffer from some form of domestic abuse and 30 percent have no sex life, the news portal chinanews.com reported.
Tang Kuiyu, a sociologist at the Harbin Institute of Technology who led the research, said that the wives of gay men are a vulnerable group in China who suffer from more hardships than their counterparts from other families.
Lan Yueliang (pseudonym), who has been helping wives of gay men seek counseling for five years after her niece was found to be married to a gay man, said that most of such wives who come to her have children with their gay husbands.
"They prefer to endure the pain and stress brought about by their gay husbands for the sake of their children," said Lan, adding that the majority of those wives suffer from emotional abuse. In most cases, there is little communication between the couple.
The other reason why a minority choose to file for divorce is their husband is usually the breadwinner in the family, according to Lan.
The study found that 40 percent said they had sex with their gay husbands fewer than five times in six months, and 34 percent said they had no sex at all.
Seventy-five percent are under the age of 35, and only four of them are above 55.
China's top sexologist Li Yinhe previously wrote on her blog that such a marriage between gay men and straight women carries a distinctive Chinese characteristic. In other countries, gay men tend to live alone or move in with other gay men, Li pointed out. "Chinese society attaches much emphasis to marriage and giving birth that it is almost compulsory."
