Comment on "Govt seeks ways to reverse worrying rise in divorce rate" (China Daily, March 31)

One of the major problems I have found in my 10 years in China is the fact that so many couples should never have married. They marry for all the wrong reasons, often because of parental pressure. I have never seen such meddling in my life. The basis for marriage is love, not because one mother knows another mother and wouldn't it be great if my son marries your daughter. There are reports of young people renting a boyfriend or girlfriend to go home during Spring Festival because of family pressures, or we see young people simply not wanting to go home because of the family pressure about getting married they know they will face.

I also see people getting married simply because their friends are married, so they must follow the trend and just find someone. It's terrible that young people marry because of all the social pressures and then realize how miserable they are going to be with someone they don't love, maybe don't even like. In addition, it's a ridiculous and insulting concept to look at unmarried females as "leftovers". What kind of mental state does that idea come from?

If you want to stop the divorce rate, stop the "bad" marriage rate. Get the parents out of young people's relationships, and you won't have so many young couples getting divorced. Let young people find their own mates, and take the pressure off them when they are trying to become adults in the first place and find their own selves and their own lives.

RONINXIAN, on China Daily website

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