PETALING JAYA: MCA has criticised the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry for focusing on divorce cases instead of more pertinent issues such as child marriage and other social ills affecting the country.

"More pertinent attention by the federal government should be paid on the devastating issues of child marriage, abandoned babies, domestic violence and child abuse. These social problems must be addressed.

"Marriage and divorce are personal matters. Once the romance has died down, reasons cited for marital break-down can verge on unusual.

"The government should refrain from investing too much resources to investigate such reasons," the MCA central committee member Datuk Ong Chong Swen said in a statement on Wednesday (Nov 14).

She said marriage involved a "very private area of personal feelings and relationship" between a couple.

"It is extremely subjective, personal and private," she said.

Ong said she does not see how the findings by the Ministry would reduce the rate of divorce.

Hannah Yeoh, the Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister, had revealed in Parliament that loud snoring spouses, wives who go on trips with friends often or women who do laundry at night were among the frivolous reasons cited as reasons for divorce among newlyweds.

Yeoh was replying to Noor Amin Ahmad (PH-Kangar) who asked the ministry in Parliament to reveal the number of and main reasons for divorces among those married for under five years.

She added that the government would provide more pre- and post-marriage courses to prepare young couples to build strong and happy families.

Ong in responding to Yeoh, said reasons for divorces, such as doing laundry at night, indicated that the couple was "not mature enough".

"Anyhow, the government is unlikely to intervene, including prohibiting any individuals or married couple to do their laundry at night," she said.

Ong also said the government must have the "courage and moral fibre" to table a Bill in parliament to heighten the legal marriage age.

"I believe this serious issue needs to be remedied, than to pay significance to night time washing of clothes as a cause for divorce," she said.