A survey quoted in Thursday's China Youth Daily showed 58.78 percent of married women -- most of whom are aged from 35 to 45 --believed in legal documentation of their goods and assets before entering wedlock.

Beijing-based survey institution on female issues, Huakun, was quoted as saying that 45.65 percent of women surveyed also found it necessary to reach marital property agreements with their husbands.

According to the survey, 35.05 percent of women expected to share part of the marital property such as homes and stock shares while 31.51 percent wanted to share with their husbands both pre-marriage and marital property.

Another 13.31 percent of women preferred not to share their property with their husbands.

Only a handful of married women had managed to undertake property notarization with their husbands though many realized they needed to, said Deng Xiaolan, head of the survey institution.

Only 3.9 percent of the couples surveyed made marital property agreements, most of which were just oral agreements. Those with notarized written agreements accounted for 0.34 percent.

Husbands owned more of the marital property than wives, except stock shares which were held equally, the survey said.

And 38.76 percent of the families used the husband's bank account for savings while 30.43 percent used the wife's. In another 30.81 percent of the families, each partner kept their own money.

(People's Daily December 20, 2002)