China Changing Marriage Law to Increase Birth Rates

In this episode, we delve into China's new policies designed to tackle its demographic decline. We discuss recent changes to marriage and divorce laws, their implications, and how the population is reacting to these changes. We explore the easing of marriage registration, the controversial 30-day cooling-off period for divorces, and the shift in property division laws in favor of the paying spouse. We also touch upon China's broader strategies to increase fertility rates, such as providing financial incentives and lowering the legal marriage age, and analyze their potential effectiveness and social impact.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are going to be going into how China is attempting to deal with its demographic catastrophe it's going through, and one of the ways is through changing how marriage and divorce work in the country. And we had seen a tweet that briefly covered some of the changes that they had in this area.

But I wanted to go a lot deeper than this particular tweet into the specifics of how things are changing. How people in China are reacting to it and why they think it might work, ready to dive in, or any thoughts? We go further. I'm intrigued this would happen. We're like, look, people are going to, what's interesting about these changes is I think many red pillars would probably like a lot of them.

So we'll see how this goes. You know, they're, they're not all the worst. Oh, okay. W Marriage registration. The revised law proposed in August, 2024 and effective as of February, 2025 removes regional restrictions on marriage registration, allowing couples to register [00:01:00] anywhere in China without needing to return to their household registration.

Kuku locations. This simplifies the process aiming to encourage marriage amid demographic crises. Now, it sounds

Simone Collins: like marriage before then must have been uniquely difficult one on earth. Is this like needing to return to.

Malcolm Collins: This is actually a really interesting point. So, in China you are like sort of owned by your starting district often and to, to move to a new area, it can be quite difficult and require permission from the central government, almost like changing citizenship.

Yeah, almost like changing citizenship. And if you're like a migrant worker or something like that, you often need to go back to your home area for certain like legal things. What's really fascinating about this is where this relates to religious history. Oh. A lot of people like modern, historians and stuff like this have said that they do not believe that Joseph had to return to his hometown during the census. Because they're like, that doesn't make sense. [00:02:00] How could a Roman census work where literally everyone who had ever moved at some point in their life had to return to their hometown at the same time for a census?

And I think what they're not taking into consideration is one. We see this in other countries like China, even today, basically. Yeah. And two not as many people moved in those types of environments where your legal standing was in large part, tied to where you were born. Probably in the Roman Empire or something like that.

If you moved too far from where you were born, somebody could just take you and say you're their slave, right? Like, there, there, there wasn't a lot you could legally do. So it was quite dangerous. To move long distances during those time periods and try to live somewhere else, unless your job was trading and if you were a trader, you'd have guards and stuff like that.

And it was quite a different thing than just like moving. But anyway, I, I find that to be a good thing. They are loosening bureaucratic bloat.

Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: China's marriage rate has plummeted with only 6.1 million marriages [00:03:00] recorded in 2024. A 20.5% drop from 2023. Year over year, it dropped by over 20%. And this was the lowest since 1986.

This decline coupled with low birth rates, has prompted the government to promote family friendly policies, quote unquote, family friendly which is wild. Divorce proceedings. The 30 day cooling off period first introduced in 2021 under China's civil code is retained and emphasized in the 2025 revision.

Couples filing for divorce by mutual consent must wait 30 days during which either party can withdraw the application effectively halting the process. Wow. If no withdrawal occurs, they must reapply within another 30 days to finalize the divorce. Otherwise, the application is automatically withdrawn and canceled.

Simone Collins: Oh, so just adding friction to the process. They're, they're reducing friction to get married, adding friction to get divorced.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. [00:04:00] And obviously a lot of people are freaking out about the what, like what if he's abusive? Well, we'll get to that because it sounds like they haven't thought of that, but anyway.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: This period has significantly reduced divorce rates reported 70% drop in the first quarter of 2021. Wow. From 1 million to. 296,000. However, it has sparked criticism for delaying or preventing divorces, particularly in cases of domestic violence, despite exemptions for such cases. The point being is that there are actually exemptions for those cases not a bad law to implement here in the us.

People would go absolutely panic mode if they did, but yeah, it would. Anyway. Critics argue the cooling off period undermines personal autonomy with one Weibo user stating it's easy to get married, but hard to divorce. What a stupid rule, a sentiment that garnered tens of thousands of likes. Why? Why would that be a stupid rule?

Why would a government who prefers people being married not want it to be easy to get married and hire a divorce? That's [00:05:00] why if you look at the executive orders we submitted for the Trump administration, we wanted to. Reduce any tax ties for marriage. A government should always prefer people to be married.

Married people are like just strictly better than non-married people. They commit less crimes, they make more money. They are more stable. Economically speaking. They make for better parents. They like in every metric. You as a government would prefer to have more of your population married. Any thoughts before I go further?

Simone Collins: I agree. Well, I would also add that kids are a lot better off when they have two parents to support them. So yeah, I mean, it's tough. Obviously it's complicated, and then when there is abuse involved, or if a parent is incredibly toxic and putting the kids in danger, it's a very different situation. But yeah, I think being too flippant about both getting married and getting divorced is not a good thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, ownership based on payment. The 2025 law reportedly shifts property division to favor the spouse who paid for the asset, [00:06:00] even if both names are on the title. Ah. This marks a departure from the previous norm of equal division of marital property. For example, a husband purchased a property in later added his wife's name to the deed, would retain full ownership upon divorce.

Oh, that's gonna piss off women a lot, but it is very sane as a, I like, I don't understand why that wouldn't be the norm everywhere. Like, I understand this. Yeah. Well,

Simone Collins: I mean, it, it really, really, really disincentivizes people from getting divorced when they feel like doing so will protect or enable them to just live a financially independently, there will be less financial misaligned incentives.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, and I think that for, a lot of women, they're like, well, you know, I gave up my years as a career or whatever, so I deserve a portion of it. Yeah. But the existing system just makes no sense. It doesn't make sense that you should be getting alimony and child payment and half his stuff.

You know, as they say, the woman gets half, the man gets a quarter and the lawyers get a quarter. That doesn't make sense because that almost incentivizes. Women who are the [00:07:00] less interested party in the relationship to initiate a divorce because it can be quite a cushy life. It's in their financial best

Simone Collins: interest, especially if they feel like they can trade up.

So not only do you end up with more assets than you had coming into the marriage, but. You can also do it all over again, which is really bad.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Just keep, keep playing that game and live like that. And that is

Simone Collins: no, I would also say like those who are arguing, this is pushing in people into t trad relationships.

I would actually argue that there's a world in which this. Encourages more of what we consider to be trapped relationships, which is the corporate family. This is saying women, if you want to be financially safe, if you want to have an off ramp from a toxic marriage, you need to maintain some level of income, some kind of career, whether it's from home or remotely or in an office, because if you don't.

And you wanna leave someday, you will have no savings, you will have no house, you will not have anything. And I think it's really good to have incentives in place that also encourage both partners to be economically productive, possibly [00:08:00] even together, maybe from the home, whatever it is. And this does that, which is really great.

I think anything that it encourages women or any, like any single partner to just sit there and be 100% a homemaker that is not bringing in money is. Very dangerous because as we you've discussed at length in the Preve Guide to Relationships, this may work for 10, 15, even 20 years. And then it can become extremely unsustainable and toxic in a relationship.

Malcolm Collins: What's interesting is that if we contrast this with what's been happening in the United States in terms of divorce law, it aligns with it to an extent.

In 2011, a Supreme court ruling that family homes purchase before the marriage belong to the registered buyer, often the husband, which disadvantaged women due to cultural norms where men typically provide homes. Sorry. That was almost a, certainly a different tick than the first one, so we likely have multiple ticks on us.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Well, the really important thing that you need to make sure you do going [00:09:00] forward is not walk through that Deerfield.

We need to walk around where the grass is. Mow, I know you like taking the shortcut, but that is almost 100% where you got that tick. So

Malcolm Collins: you are absolutely right, Simone.

Simone Collins: So let's carry on. You're talking about how this was similar to a shift in US divorce law that also allowed men to keep the house.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which just seems. Insane. Like especially if women are waiting on a man to be that financially stable before marrying him. I can understand being like, okay, you know, you worked together, you got married at a young age, you didn't know how much money he'd make at that time. You know, that's different than you married a guy who's already rich.

You absolutely should have no claim to that house.

Simone Collins: Yes. Well, I mean, I, there's something to this concept of commingled assets whereby if there's some basis, I think at least in many states. For there being collaboration on behalf of the couple on certain assets like investments. Mm-hmm. [00:10:00] Then they get split.

And if they were things that were just maintained separate the whole time, like some investment account that only you kept and I never was involved with, then it's much easier for you to argue in a divorce case that you get to keep that. And I think that if a couple grows up together. And one decides to work and the other decides to stay home with kids that, you know, the house that they buy with the income from the one parent made possible by the other parents staying home.

That's more arguably something that should be split. Right? Like I also don't think that in cases where couples are making difficult trade-offs there should be no consideration of things like that, but absolutely. Like if someone bought this with their own money ahead of time, there's no. There's no Right.

The other partner has to it. I think this more is, is is a nuanced situation that comes up when there's a trade off between, you know, career choices and especially child rearing choices. I.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So next ex post claim. This rule makes it impossible for some women to take financial advantage [00:11:00] of marriage reflecting a perception that it closes legal loopholes. Properties gifted to the husband by his parents are explicitly excluded from shared matrimonial property and remain his sole property post-divorce. This provision reinforces the traditional practice where families off the groom invest in homes for the couple, but it can leave women with little to claim to assets they may have contributed to indirectly through household labor.

This rule has fueled debates about fairness as women in China often face economic disadvantages including a gender income gap and limited property ownership. Well, first I. Know if they have a gender income gap there. I know that people lie about that in the United States, so like that makes me suspicious of it everywhere.

Fair. Just so people know, there isn't a gender income gap in the US when you control for like hours put in and, and everything like that. And there is, however I should say an explicit gender income gap for younger American. But women make more than men. So like, yes, there is economic disparity and it's that we need to start prejudicing against women.

Although, well,

Simone Collins: anything, the, the disadvantage that women have income-wise is [00:12:00] due to cultural disparities like. Women feeling like they need to be the one to scale down or start working part-time because they wanna be the one to take their kid to the doctor. They wanna be the one to do this or that. And in our relationship, for example, Malcolm does all that.

And so it, it doesn't have to be that way, but I think a lot of women just either want to do that, they want to spend more of their time parenting, so they choose to work less and then therefore they end up making less, like there are long-term career impacts, of course, to having gaps in your resume.

And so I, I would say. The measurable aspects. When you say controlling for other things, a lot of it's controlling for these culturally driven decisions that women make with regard to their careers that affects lifetime income.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, absolutely. And I'd also note here that people can be like, well, that seems totally reasonable that, you know, because the money was given to the man by his parents.

Right. The problem becomes. It's not as bad in China 'cause you have so many single you know, parent households, right? Like they're, they're parents to one kid. But if you have a son and a daughter, you pay for your son's [00:13:00] house, but not your daughter's house because the, the parents of the man who she married pay for that.

Yeah. Which is why this systemically disadvantages women. Yeah. It can be fixed by creating situations where you pay for your children regardless of their genders. But then people will say, well, then I won't secure as good of a woman, or, I want secure woman as well, because there's, you know, far fewer women than men in China due to the one child system and them like exposing, you know, female babies and stuff like that.

Which, you know, just puts them in a terrible situation. A lot of people in China just aren't gonna get a partner. And I don't know what to say about that.

Simone Collins: Not good. I.

Malcolm Collins: Impact and controversy gender inequality concerns. Feminist critics such as writer xo Melin argue that law restricts women's rights to seek separation, particularly as women initiate 74% of divorce cases.

The cooling off period is seen as they step backwards, potentially trapping women in unhappy marriages. You know, it's like, okay, if they're initiating 74% of of [00:14:00] divorces. That makes it sound like women are the problem, not, not the men. That's not a, a thing to brag about. Property division changes exacerbate these concerns as women who contribute non-financially.

Eeg, childcare and housework may receive little or no compensation. A 2024 study by Yale sociologists Emma Zang about the the 2011 property rule reduced women's wellbeing by limiting their economic autonomy. Though some couples adapted by. Adding wives names to deeds.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. In cases of domestic violence, the cooling off periods exemption is inconsistently applied with reports of courts denying divorces despite evidence of abuse.

For example, a 2019 case involving a woman assaulted by her husband required public pressure via social media to secure a divorce. Mm-hmm. Now, I'll note when you get something like this, this is a direct result of people who didn't take tism seriously. This is what you get. This is a natural result of not taking prenatal seriously.

Simone Collins: Yeah. [00:15:00] Not ideal.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Social media, women's rights

Simone Collins: do get eroded as panic sets in. It didn't have to be this way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Social media backlash. The law has generated significant online criticism with Weibo hashtags about the draft law garnering over 500 million views in August, 2024. Users have called it unfair with one stating when they want you to do something,

they'll simplify the process, but when they don't, there will be endless procedures. Well, I mean, yeah, that is what was going to happen as a result of you guys not getting married and having kids. Yeah. Duh. On X post, reflect polarized views, some praise the law for protecting men's assets and closing loopholes while others highlight negative impact on women, particularly in abusive situation.

These posts often lack primary sources and should be treated as inconclusive. Women have also used platforms like Jang Jay to celebrate divorces with divorce parties gaining popularity, [00:16:00] signaling a cultural shift towards viewing divorce as empowerment rather than stigma. Well, that's not good when, when that's happening.

By the way, I noticed here when I was reading like on x you know, the whole like x. Twitter thing, like the, the naming of it. I, I feel like X is actually gaining traction and becoming a bit normalized now. Yeah, I think

Simone Collins: we're getting used to it finally.

Malcolm Collins: It sounds cooler than Twitter. And more masculine.

It's like, it's like when they rebrand, like, like Diet Coke to Coke Zero. Oh, so that men are okay with drinking it. That's what I feel like it was from Twitter to X. It's, it's a version of Twitter that's like manly. Even the logo looks like one of those modified like shaver logos or something. Or like, it's so true.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You know, just so you know that like if you're uncomfortable using this product as a man, like this is an extra manly product.

Simone Collins: It's okay. Now it's okay.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my gosh. Anyway, by the way, I dunno if you'd heard, but all of these people have been so proud of their blue check mark in San Francisco. It became like a common thing to buy these like, blue [00:17:00] check mark like sings like, like, tokens for like the site of your house.

You know how you would have like a fire ornament in like Philadelphia or something? Oh my gosh. To show like I'm a blue check Mark House. No.

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: then when Elon bought the, the platform, they, they all started like. Freaking out and taking them down and having these, because you know, it costs like a hundred thousand.

Simone Collins: You need

Malcolm Collins: to get the company to, there's people you could pay, I think it was a hundred thousand Right, to get a blue check mark for you itself.

Simone Collins: No, I think you just need to know who to contact and have no, it was

Malcolm Collins: 10 to a hundred thousand. Yeah. But if you don't know who to contact, there were agents who specialized in getting these.

Simone Collins: I, I didn't know anything about that. That's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Mutual agreement Couples can divorce through civil bureau if they mutually agree on the terms, including property division and child custody. This process requires a witten agreement and is subject to a 30 day cooling off period litigation. If mutual agreement fails, divorce proceeds through litigation, where courts evaluate grounds like adultery, domestic violence, abandonment, or breakdown in mutual affection, courts often favor mediation to preserve marriages and [00:18:00] forced time.

Diverse petitions are frequently denied to maintain social stability. Grounds for diverse adultery can influence property division and custody, but is not criminalized domestic violence. While a valid ground often requires substantial evidence and cultural biases in courts hinder women's cases.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

We're good about domestic violence. That that's, that's scary to not be able to get out of marriage. That's, that's, like, that is, is, that's not ideal. But again, China is going to pay, like this is only just the beginning of what China's going to start doing as they get desperate.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so I decided to, to, to go into what else China is doing to increase its fertility rate. There you have financial incentives. Childcare subsidies are a key measure indicated to no intended to reduce the financial burden of families. Reports from March, 2025 highlight these subsidies as part of a broader strategy discussed at [00:19:00] China's political meetings, aiming to hit economic growth target at 5%.

Free preschool education is another initiative. And then you've got healthcare support. Expanded state healthcare support for childbirth and improved pediatric services designed to lower medical expenses. Social measures, encouraging marriage is seen as a precursor to higher birth rates.

Notably, Chung Suning Chemical Group issued a memo in 2025 requiring unmarried workers age 28 to 58. Including divorced individuals to marry by September 30th as their face termination, framing non marriage as disloyalty and helal. Oh, what? That's

Simone Collins: insane. Can you imagine the freak out in the United States if suddenly you're gonna lose your job for not getting married?

And I wonder what sort of marriages of convenience, complete sham marriages this is gonna produce. Like this is the kind of policy that just is, is gonna backfire. It's not gonna get people to marry for the right reasons and. This is something we talk about with prenatal is policy a lot. It has to be endogenous.

It can't be exogenous. You can't force it upon people. It has to come from within. And [00:20:00] if you don't fix your culture, if you don't fix hope for the future, you're not gonna do that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They, the group reversed this, by the way. They didn't, they, they, they ended up, I imagine as such. I imagine somebody who like had some, like, you know, he's running the company, but he also had some sort of a CCP position.

He's like, I know what I'll do to help them with their fertility rate. I'll force everyone in my company to get married. But. I can see this becoming more normalized around the world in the future. Like this is like the first instance in which we're like, oh my God, can you believe? But I would not be surprised if we actually see quite a lot of that in the future.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: Some districts are also considering a three child policy a shift from a former one child policy to encourage larger families which they've been doing for a while.

What? Simone, what's so silly about our baby?

Simone Collins: She's being mischievous on purpose, but in a really sweet way. That of course means she's super related to us.

Malcolm Collins: Oh no. You made a mischievous baby. Me. I had not. I can [00:21:00] contribute to this.

Simone Collins: I was not a mischievous, I was a very, very well behave child.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So, I think that these sorts of changes are things that we're gonna expect sort of everywhere. Yeah. In, in countries where I, I think one thing that we definitely won't expect is things to get better for women. I. Things that give women more autonomy, make it easier for women to divorce, make it easier.

Like you are not going to see that going forward. And people can be like, oh, women's right to being rolled back. And it's like, well, it's basically like we gave you a, like when I give one of my kids like a privilege, you're a toy. And I'm like, yeah, but don't do something bad with this. Right? And they immediately go and do something bad with it.

That's what women basically did. This is why you can't have nice

Simone Collins: things. That kind of thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I'm saying this is what you get.

Simone Collins: I mean, so I like some things about this. I like that China is looking at regulatory barriers [00:22:00] and regulatory bloat and playing with those, with those levers. Making it, for example, easier to get married.

And I think that in the United States, before things get bad for women, there are so many nice for everyone. Things that can be made so much easier that are, for example, related to the executive orders we submitted to the Trump White House. For example, most middle class couples in the United States are penalized on their taxes for getting married.

They pay more in taxes for getting married, which of course, didn't incentivizes people from getting married. So if we were to remove that tax penalty, we could increase probably a race of marriage in the United States. Same with things like daycare regulation and cars, heat regulation, free range child loss.

So I think there's so much that can be done and I like that China is looking at regulation, and I think this is why many people have lauded, like many intellectuals online are lauding what China is doing. So like, ah, look like they're trying to play with levers of policy to really address demographic labs, which is a super big deal.

[00:23:00] Here's, here's the part I don't think they're doing, they're not doing it in a way where I feel like it's gonna make enough of a difference. And they're also not making life materially better for people who choose to create families in a way that gets them excited or makes them like, I don't see how this is going to make it easier for couples who wanna have more kids to do so.

And it's only hard making it scarier to get married which is, you know, just, just making it easier to get married. I don't think it's now going to address the chilling effect that has been placed on by what will be like a lot of. Social media campaigns of like, I can't get out of this abusive relationship because of China's evil misogynistic laws.

And then women are gonna be like, well, I'm just never gonna get married because that's obviously a scam. Now that's obviously to trap me and once I'm in, I can't get out and the government's out to get me for this. So I think this is gonna backfire. I. And as much as I love the general concept and you know, the spirit, it's, it's so sweet, but it's wrong.

And this is really gonna hurt them in the end.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's funny [00:24:00] that you say that because they're already working on solutions. Oh yeah. One is the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultive Conference, or the C-P-P-C-C, lower tongue. Lowering the legal age of marriage from 22 for men and 20 for women to 18 aiming to quote unquote unleash reproductive potential.

My God, China really did

Simone Collins: not like families and children. I mean, you can get married in the US when you're 18. You can get married at states. You don't have to go to your local province to get married in the United States. So it's really insane to me that I think

Malcolm Collins: in, in, in a lot of, not a lot of, in a few of the southern states age of consent is as low as 14.

If you have been married by that age which is right, but you

Simone Collins: need your parents' permission to marry.

Malcolm Collins: Right, but you need your parents' permission to marry, right? Yeah, of course. They've got safeguards in place for marrying.

Simone Collins: As long as mommy and daddy say it's okay.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. But yeah, one of my favorite things is they've been changing a lot of the statues that used to have like one [00:25:00] child, and now they're putting in like, yeah,

Simone Collins: suddenly a child disappeared. Child number three, two extra.

Malcolm Collins: It's hilarious, but that's what we need to do is start making prenatal list propaganda art with ai and, and spamming the world with it. Just put it all over our house.

Simone Collins: Someone on X has been trying to do that. They created an image of the Mona Lisa with a baby. Really isn't there speculation that the Mullin Elisa either is pregnant or recently postpartum?

Anyway, I don't

Malcolm Collins: know what makes you, what was the speculation from. The

Simone Collins: art historians. Am I crazy? Hold on. Mona Lisa pregnant.

There we go. The theory that Mona Lisa was pregnant is a popular but unproven speculation. In 2006, researchers used high resolution imaging techniques to study the painting. They found evidence [00:26:00] of a subtle veil around the subject's neck, which is similar to veils worn by pregnant women in the Renaissance period.

Additionally, the subject's face appears slightly fuller in her hair, slightly disheveled, which could be signs of pregnancy. Okay, that's, that's, that's pushing it. I get you.

Malcolm Collins: That's pushing it. Simone, you crazy B fine, fine. Whatever. Anyway well, what are we doing for dinner tonight? I.

Simone Collins: I was going to do more of your pineapple, mango curry.

Love it. I have a little bit more. You can have that with either hash browns or rice or none.

Malcolm Collins: Whatever is easy or

Simone Collins: plantains with it, which I

Malcolm Collins: can

Simone Collins: try to like spice this

Malcolm Collins: time. No, the plantains are so gross. Last time you

Simone Collins: asked for it.

Malcolm Collins: I know, and we tried it and it wasn't good. It wasn't that you did a bad job cooking them.

I just forgot how tasteless they are.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: I thought they tasted a little bit of banana. I was like, oh, that would be interesting. Instead, it's probably better to do something like banana rice.

Simone Collins: Or just to like pan fry banana. [00:27:00] Yeah. Or, or caramelize it. If you take a, a blowtorch to sugar on top of a banana, you get sort of this banana creme brulee.

You get that caramel,

Malcolm Collins: caramel sugar. You know what I think what tastes pretty interesting is if you blended a banana and mixed it with rice before cooking rice to create banana rice.

Simone Collins: If you want me to do that, Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: am I murdering you with my culinary genius?

Simone Collins: Oh yeah, I am. You know, for you I'll, I'll try.

I'll try. So have

Malcolm Collins: I an annoyed you to death.

Simone Collins: Never. You char me. You charmed me. You are amazing.

Malcolm Collins: And, and the interview we did before, this was a BT went pretty well. No, that was

Simone Collins: with U USA Today.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, USA Today. And by the way, I had a tick crawling on me during the interview that I had to flick off and not show too much.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Says check for ticks. Is

Simone Collins: crawling around in your room?

Malcolm Collins: With it crawling on my hand, it probably crawled on from the jacket that I put back on after, you know, [00:28:00] for filming.

Simone Collins: Yeah, definitely.

We'll check for ticks.

Sure.

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