CEDAW/C/SR.36 English Page 6 25. The CHAIRPERSON, speaking on her own behalf and on behalf of the Committee, congratulated Hungary on its progress in the implementation of the Convention. 26. Mr. Somogyi (Hungary) withdrew. Initial report of China (CEDAW/C/5/Add.14) 27. Ms. ZHANG Zhong-an (China), replying to the principal questions raised by the experts concerning the report submitted by her country, noted that the influence of the feudal system which had shackled Chinese women for several thousand years, could not be eliminated in a short time. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, however, China had made important advances in promoting the principle of equality between men and women. China's family planning policy of encouraging married couples to have only one child conformed to its economic development goals. Since China had a large rapidly growing base population, with a large proportion of young people, the Government had to strive to keep the population under 1.2 billion by the end of the century. If each of the 12 million young couples who married each year had two children, the population figure would reach 1.3 billion by the year 2000. Her Government also paid a great deal of attention to genetics and to improving the quality of the population, as shown by the prohibition by law of consanguineous marriages and the promotion of medical examination and treatment of pregnant women and nursing mothers. Bonuses and other incentives were provided for the one-child couple, including priority in housing, medical care and nursery enrolment. Couples were encouraged to have a second child only if the first child was disabled, if one of the remarried partners had never had a child, if there had been only one child in the family for many generations or if the family was living in a remote area. Contraception was the method most relied upon, although tubal ligation was an option. The Government had to rely on the willingness of couples to have only one child since they could not .be forced to do so. 28. With regard to marriage and the family, the 1950 law and the revised marriage law of 1980 were identical in the sense that they both provided for free choice of partners, monogamy, equal status of husband and wife and the protection of rights within the family. Both laws prohibited arranged marriages. The sections on the prohibition of concubines and child wives had been deleted in the 1980 law because they were obsolete. The more recent law stated that married couples were duty bound to practise family planning and raised the legal age of marriage from 20 to 22 years for men and from 18 to 20 years for women. Children could adopt either their father's or their mother's family name, and a woman could become a member of the man's family, or vice versa by agreement between the two parties. 29. Family relations were relatively stable in China, and the percentage of divorce was low. However, in the event of divorce the child was still consideted as belonging to both the mother and the father no matter who had custody. custody issues were settled by the parents or, if they could not agree, by the court. Generally speaking, nursing babies were placed in the custody of their mothers, the custody of young children was determined by the child's best interests and children old enough to express their opinions were allowed to live with whichever parent they chose. / ...