Nowadays in Jinan City in east China's Shandong Province, engaged couples have the option of taking part in a new premarital check called the "Premarital Psychological Test." However, focusing on the extent to which premarital couples match each other from a psychological perspective, the newly-born test is arousing more rejection than approval from society.

In order to come up with a degree of compatibility, counselors administering the new Premarital Psychological Test make use of a long psychological questionnaire. Completed by each person themselves, the survey includes questions about the environment in which they were raised, personal characteristics, values, culture and religion, among other things. After a comprehensive analysis of the results, an index showing how well the couple matches psychologically is figured out. And, the test's last step comes with suggestions made by the counselor on how the couple might solve the problems that might arise from their psychological difference.

However, according to present statistics, couples that take part in the test usually have low confidence about marriage and 70 percent of them have psychological discord about their future marital bond. More than 50 percent of couples that took the test even broke up after they were informed they were "not well matched psychologically" by the test results, and only less than 30 percent of couples remained together and received psychological treatment after testing "not a good match."

A white-collar worker in a foreign firm, Ms. Liu, said that "Its positive effect is that this kind of Premarital Psychological Test to some extent could help solve future problems that might arise in a marriage. However, it might also bring unsound effects, like one person shirking his or her marital responsibilities on the pretext of the negative result of the couple's Premarital Psychological Test."

Psychology professors believe that although young couples are encouraged to be involved in psychological counseling when they face troubles while dating, they should regard the results of such counseling with the right attitude. Some happy families are comprised of people sharing totally different or even complementary characteristics, but they still live together well enough. Thus, only depending on test results like those from the Premarital Psychological Test to determine whether or not to break up is far from reasonable.
　
Psychological experts also suggest that figuring out how to transfer to one's role after marriage is the most important issue and should be discussed and analyzed before tying the knot. Although the "Premarital Psychological Test" is helpful to those seeking a better understanding of their partner before marriage, its reliability cannot be exaggerated.

(CRI August 29, 2006)