For money or love?

Faced with the prospect of their child marrying someone "unsuitable", wealthy parents usually resort to one of two options: engineer a breakup or demand a prenuptial agreement.

With inheritances worth billions of yuan at stake, "prenups" are designed to prevent fuerdai from falling prey to gold-diggers.

"Wealthy people are very protective of what they have because they have suffered hard times to make it and want to keep it for the next generation," said professor Zhang Zhenyu at the Shanghai Psychological Society. "These parents have a lot of influence over their children's choices and are extremely dubious about the people they date.

"They suspect that most of them are only after money."

In fact, judging by a three-month study to measure the attitudes of almost 1,000 students in South China's Guangdong province, they have good reason to be cautious.

Roughly 60 percent of females polled by researchers with the Women's Federation of Guangzhou admitted they want to marry a fuerdai who stands to inherit a large sum of money from his parents. More than half of male respondents shared the same sentiment.

"Many college students are more than willing to find love with people from rich families as they want to have a comfortable life without working too hard for it," said Liu Shuqian, a professor of ethics at Guangzhou University.

Zhao Han, chief executive of a Guangzhou cosmetics group with more than 500 million yuan ($75.5 million) in assets, said she was fearful when her daughter Deng Tingting went to study in New Zealand in 2004.

"Being far from home, I was really worried that she would be cheated by someone as she has been spoiled and is naive," she said.The fear eventually became a reality when Deng moved to Sydney, Australia, two years later and started seeing a man from Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

"I got a call from my daughter asking me to transfer AUD$30,000 (US$30,300) a month to her bank account, twice as much as normal," recalled Zhao. "I soon found out she was paying her boyfriend's living expenses."

She refused to increase the allowance and demanded Deng break off the relationship. A week later, she got another call.

"Her boyfriend had dumped her because she refused to pay the rent," said Zhao. "I could hear my daughter crying on the other end of the line and I felt bad for her, but I also knew she'd learned an important lesson."

Now 25, Deng is back in China and working for her mother's business. Like many fuerdai, she has delegated the task of finding a partner to her family.

"I arrange regular blind dates for her with men who meet my requirements of a good family background and fixed assets," said her mother, Zhao. "The only exception is if my daughter finds a man she likes. Even then, he must agree to sign a prenup, as well as give up any job and leisure activities with friends.

"If he's willing to do all these things for my daughter, I'm willing to cover his living expenses for life."