Well, let me talk about the marriage law in China. I’d like to get started by talking about the history of this law. It was first passed in 1955 by the National People’s Congress（全国人大） but then it was changed many times. The latest change to this law, as far as I know, happened in 2002. The change was about the marriages between Chinese citizens and foreigners.
Now let me talk about the contents (内容) of this law. It is made up of six parts, or six “ chapters”, which are the general principles, the rules about family relations, the rules about marriages, divorces and responsibilities and also some recent changes to the rules.
I think this law is so essential coz there are many people marrying or divorcing every year. So we really need a law to control such activities. For example, as you may know, many young people marry in some rural areas before they reach the legal age to get married, which has brought tons of problems such as family violence or bad treatment of their kids. So you see, we need such a law.
On the other hand, I guess there are still some problems with this law. You know, a friend of mine married last year but he didn’t get along with his wife. So they divorced. But they now had problems dividing their property(财产) and debt. So I suppose we still have a long way to go before we get a really effective and efficient marriage law in China.
