GUESS who are the biggest public enemies of young Chinese women these days. Some will say it's those molesters on crowded Metro trains and buses.

To be sure, this is a season when molesters are on the prowl, preying upon scantily clad beauties, but there is a bunch of normally decent and revered people that young ladies probably resent even more than the molesters: China's Supreme People's Court judges.

The judges earned their fury by introducing a judicial interpretation on August 12 into the country's Marriage Law, one that threatens to tilt the balance in favor of the husband in the event of divorce - at least that's how many young women and their sulky mothers perceive the change.

According to the interpretation, the pieces of real estate registered under the name of one party in the marriage and bought by that party's parents are personal property.

Only when the spouse of the owner manages to get his/her name registered on the home ownership papers will he/she own part of that property and be able to demand alimony equal in value should the couple split up.

Under the previous legislation, wedding apartments that are purchased by one party's parents without specifying who the beneficiaries are were deemed as joint property of married couples.

Many women at marriageable age have thus concluded that the new interpretation is intended to protect the rights of the husband, not theirs, since it's an unwritten rule in China that husbands are obliged to shoulder the onerous duty of providing a wedding apartment, possible only with great financial help from their parents.

The new interpretation has met a fierce backlash from young women and their mothers, who insist on home ownership by prospective sons-in-law as a precondition for marrying off their daughters. And after their sons-in-law show them the desired houses, the next step is to add their daughters' names to the property ownership documents in a prenup.

Greedy women

The judicial interpretation has generated mixed feelings. It is understandably welcomed by men, who argue that the revised law may prevent greedy women from marrying them only to one day divide assets in divorce disputes.

However, China's twitter-like Sina Weibo is overflowing with angry women's comments decrying the injustice they perceive in this substantial change of law. They fear the new legislation will encourage infidelity by husbands, who face no steep financial cost for divorcing wives they cheat on.

And the issue of gender equality has emerged at the center of online complaints, which typically go like this, "We women do housework, stand labor pains in delivery and sacrifice so much for the family, yet the law now decisively favors men and discriminates against us.

"Let's just give up our claims to real estate and will the men please take over the job of giving birth to kids by themselves?" reads another sarcastic posting on Weibo.

This rhetorical question, asked in a girlish tantrum, expresses the view that women's ownership claims to husbands' private properties are justifiable on the grounds that they are the "weaker" and "more productive" sex deserving of compensation.

Whether that view is right can be debated, but this kind of squabbling for conjugal influence and gains has significantly cheapened marriage to the point of being blind to all but material considerations.

Feminists advocating self-dependence for women will definitely reject the label that they are "weaker." But can they hope to convince the majority of young women in China who happily regard themselves as such and require home ownership of their suitors? I doubt so.

Alex Gladstone's and Greg Wells' random interviews on Nanjing Road W. of several hundred young girls have again borne out the well-proven argument that Shanghai girls mostly marry a guy for his house, not for who he is.

'Naked marriage'

My estimates of the proportion of local girls approving of so-called "naked marriage" (marriage with no frills such as a house and a car) are even gloomier.

Perhaps only one in 10, or even one in 20 local women, would choose love over home ownership, but - and it is a big but - such marriages are usually ill-fated for want of stable financial support and blessing from the in-laws.

Observers note that the recent tinkering with the Marriage Law represents a shift of its focus from family values to individual rights, given the growing divorce rates in recent years and an accompanying spike in disputes over asset division.

Contrary to what its critics say, the "improved" law isn't biased against women, rather, it seeks to better protect their interests, lawyer Ge Shannan was quoted as saying in Tuesday's Xinmin Evening News.

Suppose the husband pays the down payment on a home and the couple shares the mortgage burden. In that case, the wife will have not only the mortgage money back but now also the gains from home value appreciation should they break up.

That said, the interpretation's downside is obvious. In a move that will potentially strain family ties, many parents rushed after the law's revision to add their own names to the ownership papers of homes they plan to bequeath to sons.

In so doing daughters-in-law will secure no more than a quarter of what the properties are worth in case of break-up.

What is intended as a well-meaning measure to prevent marriage of selfish interests may sow the seeds of distrust and tension among family members.

Can love and marriage exist independently of the frills that now too often accompany them? This question reminds me of a political joke I heard long ago.

Before the advent of universal suffrage, Americans had to own a certain amount of property to be qualified to vote. A donkey was all the property one voter had but once the animal died, he lost the right to vote. This joke provoked a preposterous yet revealing question: Who votes, the man or the donkey?

The same logic applies to the home ownership addiction many young women demonstrate when cynically assessing their suitors' qualifications. A marriage built on the premise of home ownership is as absurd and shaky as the right to vote based on ownership of a donkey or other property. And when the fallacious underpinnings are gone, what is left to support them?

It helps to invoke and slightly alter Elvis Presley's lyrics to see the folly of blind love with someone who's in the relationship for a single purpose.

"Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with your house."