Many young couples start arguing weeks before Spring Festival about whether they should visit the parents of the husband or the wife to celebrate the occasion. Some times, these arguments are really nasty and even end up in divorce. Couples can deal with the problem more easily if they see it from the other's perspective, says an article on xinhua.net.cn. Excerpts:

The Spring Festival holiday is supposed to be a time for happy family reunion. But for many young couples, it has become a time for "happy annoyance". More than a quarter of the couples who responded to a recent survey covering six Chinese cities said they have quarreled over whose parents to visit, the husband's or the wife's.

Traditionally speaking, couples should celebrate Spring Festival with the husband's family. But the Marriage Law says a wife and husband are members of each other's families. So no matter whose parents a couple celebrate Spring Festival with, they will be with their family.

If the husband treats the wife's parents with respect and humility, and vice-versa, there will be happiness across the extended family.

Besides, the parents of neither the husband nor the wife should put too much pressure, material or emotional, on their children. More importantly, if grown-up children try to fulfill their parents' needs and visit them more often, it will not matter whether they spend Spring Festival with them or their parents-in-law.

(China Daily 01/30/2014 page9)