Wang Guorong (Qianjiang Evening News): The tradition in China is the man buys the family house. Therefore, parents spend their lifetime savings on the house for the new couple and worry the daughter-in-law will get half of the house if a divorce happens. It's really a sad thing Chinese women now take having a house as a premise for marriage and fight for the house in the event of a divorce. Therefore, I applaud the new interpretation of the Marriage Law as it sets down clear lines about the ownership of the house in a divorce, which will reduce the number of cases of divorced couples fighting for the house.

As the divorce rate in China increases, greater uncertainty has been added to marriage. Because the ownership of the family house is a difficult point in divorce cases, it's good the new interpretation clarifies it. From this perspective, the interpretation is bound to change Chinese people's attitude toward marriage. More girls will be willing to choose men with great potential and work with them to gain a happy and wealthy future instead of marrying the second generation of a rich family. The first kind of marriage will last longer and be happier.

People argue the new interpretation protects the rights of the more powerful side of the marriage and harms the interests of the disadvantaged person. I don't agree with this argument. In marriage, both sides should be equal life partners and there shouldn't be advantaged sides or disadvantaged sides. Both sides should fight for a better life together.

Miao Miao (People's Daily): The purpose of the Marriage Law is ensuring people's freedom of marriage, including the freedom of being married as well as becoming divorced. The new interpretation helps realize the purpose of the law to a large extent as it specifies people's rights in a family, especially rights relating to the family house.

Opponents

Li Kejie (http://www.xinhuanet.com): I don't approve of the new judicial interpretation of the Marriage Law. Marriage and family are not like a company and shouldn't merely be a combination of assets but should be an integration of familial love and money. In marriage, love is complicated and can't be easily calculated. Besides, the contributions family members make to the family can't be measured according to only money. So we shouldn't see marriage as a big shopping mall and shouldn't apply the business rule of "whoever makes the investment gains the profit" to marriage. Otherwise, it will benefit the more powerful side and do harm to the disadvantaged.

The new interpretation has a strong sense of business and shows the rule of the world of capital. It doesn't show enough consideration for the factor of love in a family. As a matter of fact, it puts women in a more disadvantaged place than they already are.

Besides, it neglects a major social problem, supporting the aged. In urban and rural areas, the problem of supporting the aged is growing more and more urgent. If the house belongs to one party only, should the obligation of supporting the aged be only on the shoulders of that party? It will be a huge problem in determining who supports the aged in the event of a divorce. We can imagine if a house only belongs to one party and the other party is only a temporary resident of the house, why should the less favored and disadvantaged party still be under an obligation to support the aged of both sides? If things continue this way, people will gradually have less and less sense of family responsibility and become more distant from each other.

When dealing with family and marriage issues, the law shouldn't emphasize the factor of family love too much, neither should it emphasize the ownership of assets too much. It should find a balance between these two.

Xu Feng (Guangzhou Daily): The new judicial interpretation will cause more problems than it solves.

First, from now on, women will likely demand they be added to the property ownership certificates as a premise for getting married, which will cause greater chaos in divorce cases.

Second, it will give men much more protection than it should. On the surface, it brings fairness, but it entails more hidden unfairness. Men and women have different positions in family, and different obligations and rights. They make complementary contributions to the family. In China, the usual convention is women give birth to children, educate children and do the family chores. These invisible contributions they make to the family will inevitably give them less of a fortune after marriage. If this kind of contribution is not taken into consideration while dividing family assets, including any premarital house, it will be totally unfair to women.

Finally, it has the more apparent flaw of being ambiguous on the issue of rural people's housing problems although it's specific on regulating the ownership of the family house for urbanites. In China, there are many more rural residents than urban people. This is another big flaw of the new interpretation.

Li Ying (http://lady.163.com): I don't support the new judicial interpretation. It's a men's law or a law which protects the powerful but does harm to the weaker side.

We don't deny legislators should be fair and just, but they shouldn't overlook the characteristics of different groups. When dealing with women's disadvantaged status in families, legislators should give them greater protection to realize true equality in families and society. The current situation is that if men cheat on women, they can still have the house and few costs in a divorce.

I don't think laws should be harsh. By showing respect and pursuing justice through different means, it should show warmth to all members in society. The judicial interpretation of the Marriage Law should have shown a more humane spirit rather than reducing the financial cost of men cheating on women.