At one Guangzhou university, learning the wrong lessons in love can lead to expulsion. The South China Normal University issued a stern warning to students last month about having affairs and wrecking marriages. Students have been warned that maintaining a "special relationship" with a married person could cause them to be booted off campus.
The regulation classifies cohabiting and sabotaging others' marriages as violations of campus regulations. Offenders will be warned, punished or even expelled, it says, but students will be given a hearing before any punishment is dished out and will be given the right to appeal.
Many students and critics of the regulation say students should be free to have sex with whomever they like and that universities have no right to intrude on their private lives.
An administrator at the South China Normal University says it has been forced to act after several female students became involved in affairs with married men. Some of the students had even been sued by aggrieved wives. "How should the university react and face the victims of the affairs? We could not tell the wives 'It's none of our business; you go talk with the student'," the administrator said. She said the rules could at least provide a kind of vaccination against affairs between students and married people.
The universities' concern is not without foundation. On weekends, many luxury cars can be seen parked at university gates in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The drivers, mostly middle-aged men, are waiting for their young girlfriends.
Many students say the new rules are impractical, because it will be difficult to obtain evidence, and that universities have no right to punish students over their private lives anyway. Deng Liting, a female student at Shenzhen University, said: "Who can prove whether it's a pure relationship or just a commercial transaction? Even if it is a commercial transaction, it's none of their business."