Around 80% Chinese accept pre-martial sex, according to a China national ethics survey released earlier this week.
The survey was conducted by one of the top universities in the country - Renmin University of China- over the year 2006. In the midst of huge social transformation in China, the survey aims at understanding Chinese nationals’ change in their viewpoints on ethics and family issues.
The statistics showed that only 15.26% of the respondents believe that pre-martial sex is unethical, and should strictly say “No”. 12.77% refer that although pre-martial sex is unethical, such behavior should be "understood". Another 32.68% said sex before marriage is not condemnable as soon as the couples are truly in love with one another. Also, some 28% labeled pre-martial sex as a "private" issue.
In conclusion, almost 80% of the respondents suggested that pre-martial sex is acceptable, which has become a real challenge to the traditional Confucian teaching that emphasizes on abstinence. Moreover, such open-minded attitude to sex has surpassed the western world.
While comparing between the age group, the statistics has revealed that youngsters under 30 are most opened-minded, representing the mainstream in today’s China. For respondents aged 20-29, only 7% strictly opposes sex before marriage.
To show that ethics is declining in China, Chinese people’s liberal attitude towards pre-martial sex is only tip of the iceberg. There are three major family problems in Chinese society as revealed in other parts of the survey, analysts reported.
First of all, it is the weakening institute of marriage, which has become a nationwide problem, especially in some coastal or well-developed commercial cities. Not only divorce rate is escalating, trial marriage, cohabitation, pre-martial pregnancy, ex-martial affairs, family violence, single-parent child are also becoming more common.
Parenting is another serious issue as the number of one-child family is rising. Many parents tend to emphasize on the intellectual development instead of character formation, as a result, many children has become too dependent, immature, self-centered and unable to communicate with others.
Lastly, many grown-up adults have not able to fulfill the standard as required by Confucian to respect their parents. Even though most of them take care of their parent’s physical needs, they are unable to obey to their parents’ will absolutely in terms of decision making.
