Beijing: One-third of urban Chinese youth believe extra-marital affairs and sex before

marriage should be tolerated, while viewing pre-marital sex as “good” for married life, state press said Tuesday. In a survey involving 1,040 men and women aged 23 to 26, 33 percent said they could tolerate extra-marital affairs, while 34.8 percent said pre-marital sex was good for married life, the China Youth Daily reported. The survey was conducted by the Beijing-based Parent’s Reading magazine and survey Chinese youths in eight major cities.

The poll was aimed at getting an insight into the culture of youths born during China’s “one child” family planning policy, implemented in the early 1980s and which limits most urban families to one child.

Although the survey results revealed that some marriage traditions continue to have strong roots among the country’s youth, many attitudes are changing, the paper said. Three quarters of the respondents said marriage was indispensable to life, and 65 percent said they believed a marriage should last for life, while 64 per cent said they considered the husband the pillar of the family. But both men and women preferred marrying later than the traditional preference for the early 20s, with the average marrying age for men being 28 and the average age for women 27, the survey said. Women also preferred to have a child at the age of 30, while 74.5 per cent said they had no particular preference for either a baby boy or a baby girl. Some 67 per cent cited economic reasons for marrying late or having a child late. — AFP