Disabled man has trouble getting legally married  

聾啞小伙登記結婚被拒5次 因無法表達個人意愿

(ECNS) -- A disabled couple in Rui'an, Zhejiang province, is having trouble getting legally married due to the husband's inability to file the paperwork, according to a report by Qianjiang Evening News.

The couple are from a town in Rui'an. Cai is a deaf-mute, while his wife, surnamed Mei, suffers from vision disability.　

The couple have been engaged for more than a year, and Mei is seven months pregnant, but they still hasn't gotten a marriage license from the local civil affairs department.

"Because my husband can't express his intent to get married to officials at the local civil affairs department," Mei said.

"He can't write," said Mei, who added that they have been to the local civil affairs department five times, but they were refused by the person in charge there.

"Without a marriage license, I can't apply for a birth certificate for my baby after it's born," she said.

To help the couple obtain a marriage license, the civil affairs office once arranged for a sign language expert to translate for Cai, said Dong Haifeng, director at the office.

However, the attempt failed again because Cai doesn't understand sign language.

"Cai should at least be able to show his basic ability for civil conduct, and express his personal intent to get married," Dong said. "We asked him to do that because our duty is to prohibit unintentional marriages by arbitrary third-party decisions or mercenary marriages."

Officials at the civil affairs office advised relatives of Cai to get him tested in order to show his inability to carry out civil conduct.