How to style the parent element when hovering a child element?

Issue

I know that there does not exist a CSS parent selector, but is it possible to style a parenting element when hovering a child element without such a selector?

To give an example: consider a delete button that when hovered will highlight the element that is about to become deleted:

<div>
    <p>Lorem ipsum ...</p>
    <button>Delete</button>
</div>

By means of pure CSS, how to change the background color of this section when the mouse is over the button?

Solution

I know it is an old question, but I just managed to do so without a pseudo child (but a pseudo wrapper).

If you set the parent to be with no pointer-events, and then a child div with pointer-events set to auto, it works:)
Note that <img> tag (for example) doesn't do the trick.
Also remember to set pointer-events to auto for other children which have their own event listener, or otherwise they will lose their click functionality.

div.parent {  
    pointer-events: none;
}

div.child {
    pointer-events: auto;
}

div.parent:hover {
    background: yellow;
}    

<div class="parent">
  parent - you can hover over here and it won't trigger
  <div class="child">hover over the child instead!</div>
</div>

Edit:
As Shadow Wizard kindly noted: it's worth to mention this won't work for IE10 and below. (Old versions of FF and Chrome too, see here)

Answered By - guy_m