Child div height determines parent height? - html

Question

I have a parent div that contains two children, side by side. The first child is an image that must be height 100% and 58% width, margin auto and overflow hidden. The second child contains text, and the length of the text determines the height of the parent. This is a template for several pages, with different length of text, and therefore different parent height. Is it possible to do what I'm trying to do without using JS? Thanks for your input! Code below.
HTML:
<div id="product-summary">
<div class="product-image-container">
<img />
</div>
<div id="product-details">
<h3 class="product-title"></h3>
<div class="product-description"></div>
</div>
</div>
CSS:
.product-image-container {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
width: 58%;
height: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
img {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 50%;
margin: auto;
transform: translateX(-50%);
min-width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
}
#product-details {
float: right;
border: solid thin #777;
height: ~"calc(100% - 2px)";
width: 41%;
text-align: center;
}

Answer 1

The problem is your #product-details is floated, which creates a new BFM (block formatting context), and the parent gets collapsed.
I suggest you read more about BFMs here: http://yuiblog.com/blog/2010/05/19/css-101-block-formatting-contexts/
There are several ways to fix this:
You could clear the parent, a way to do that is by adding overflow: hidden; to the #product-summary element.
You could remove the float: right from #product-details, and use flexbox to align it instead.

Answer 2

I don't know any preprocessor wizardry, but using inline-block works good, as well as keeping positioned absolute elements wrapped in a relative parent for control. It wasn't mentioned how the image is displayed, so I assume aspect ratio unchanged and no cropping.
SNIPPET
.product-image-container {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
top: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
width: 58%;
height: 100vh;
overflow: hidden;
}
img {
display: inline-block;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
width: 100%;
height: auto;
}
#product-details {
float: right;
border: 1px solid #777;
height: 100%;
width: 41%;
text-align: center;
}
a {
margin-left: 50%;
}
<div id="product-summary">
<div class="product-image-container">
<img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/24/Lenna.png'>
</div>
<div id="product-details">
<h3 class="product-title">Lena Söderberg</h3>
<div class="product-description">
<blockquote>Lenna or Lena is the name given to a standard test image widely used in the field of image processing since 1973. It is a picture of Lena Söderberg, shot by photographer Dwight Hooker, cropped from the centerfold of the November 1972 issue of Playboy
magazine.
</blockquote>
<a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna'>Wikipedia</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>