China's first generation of only children are reliant on their parents even in their divorces.

"Many young couples coming to divorce were accompanied by their parents. Some parents came for making the final efforts to save the marriage, some came for handling property division, while others came to witness the divorce and assure that their children had survived the sadness of marriage," a staff member working at a marriage registration office was quoted as saying in a report by the Shanghai Evening Post.

"These young couples are very reliant on their parents, and their parents worried much about them. In most cases, all the procedures for divorce were gone through by the parents, while their children were merely waiting for the final signatures," said a divorce consultant in Shanghai surnamed Xu.

A staff with a Shanghai marriage registration office said the divorcees were around 30 years old with a marriage length of five years on average.

China's one-child policy has been in place for more than 20 years as a measure to slow the pace of population growth in the world's most populous country.

"The only-child group depends on their parents for everything so they are less capable of dealing with affairs independently, including their marriages. Due to their immaturity, it is understandable for parents to accompany them in divorce negotiations," said Gu Donghui, deputy director of the Department of Sociology at the Fudan University.

Professor Gu Jun from Shanghai University said the only children should become independent adults after getting married and that their parents should try not to intervene in their personal affairs, including marital affairs.

"The parents of China's first generation of only children are so devoted to their children that they don't even have their own lives. The social phenomenon is worth of thinking about," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2005)