China’s marriage trends: a society in transformation

Whether out of passion or for practical reasons, marriage remains one
of the most important events in a person’s life. However, in some
circumstances, it may also become a source of great pressure. This is
what’s happening to many people in China nowadays. While old marriage
traditions encourage early marriage and childbirth, modern society
sets standards and expectations incompatible with those values:
economic independence, competition in the job market or a high level
of education.

Between tradition and modernity

Yanyan is 35. She’s a lawyer. She’s also single. According to Chinese
standards, she is already past marriageable age. To the question of
whether she is planning to get married, she bows her head. “I don’t
know yet”, she says, “I am too old, not so beautiful, I am too
qualified. And I don’t have a very good family background.”

Yanyan is not the only one. Many surveys show that there is an
increasing tendency for Chinese people to marry later, or not to marry
at all. The records of the All-China Women’s Federation show that
registered marriages have decreased year by year. According to
statistics revealed by Parenting magazine in 2004, the average age for
marriage in big cities like Shanghai, Beijing or Guangzhou was set at
27 for women and 28 for men. This is totally different from figures
twenty years ago, when according to the population census, 74 percent
of women married between the ages of 15 and 19.

Women have gained more economic independence and secured important
positions in the job market. Establishing a career or getting more
years of education has become more important than building a family.
The average Chinese woman has more freedom to choose her marriage
partners. Consumerism and new ideas have also introduced changes in
people’s mentalities.

These and other similar changes have resulted in a general tendency to
marry later. For certain people, marriage is no longer regarded as a
‘must’. Instead of a social obligation, it is gradually becoming a
choice of status.

However, in many layers of society, marriage traditions and parental
pressure are still very present. Prospective wives are expected to be
young and beautiful. They are expected to be less qualified than their
husbands. Men must secure a job and a stable income to stand more
chances of finding a wife. For people like Yanyan, not so young, “not
so beautiful”, too qualified, it is just not so easy to find a
husband. Caught up in the transition between tradition and modernity,
and “not having what it takes to become an eligible wife”, the issue
of marriage is much more complicated. “I want to get married, but I
can’t,” she explains.

The ‘falling out’ type

Yanyan is only one example. There are many other reasons why people do
not get married. Xiao Liu, 36, is gay. His parents don’t know. “I
can’t tell them, they would never understand”, he says. For many years
now, his parents have been urging him to find a wife. He is from
Kunming but lives in Beijing since 2001. He goes home once a year for
the Spring Festival. “I don’t want to go home often, because they
always ask me if I’ve found a girlfriend”. Xiao Liu knows he will
never get married. He feels sad and guilty because he has fallen out
of his parents’ expectations. He will never carry down the family
name. “But I have no choice”, he says.

Luomei made a different choice. She is 38 and has been married for 9
years. But she likes women. She works as a high school teacher. Her
husband is a company manager. When she finishes teaching, she meets
Sunlei, her girlfriend, and they go shopping or hang around in one of
the cafes near her school. “I am not in love with my husband”, Luomei
explains, “I got married because I couldn’t stand my parents’
pressure, and because I knew I could never live with my girlfriend. I
didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life”. For Luomei, marriage
is only a matter of convenience. Her husband doesn’t know about
Sunlei. “But he suspects”, she adds, “for both of us, this has never
been a love union”.

In search of the ideal partner

In these circumstances, and the marriage issue still being so
prevalent in Chinese society, people use various strategies to chase
the ideal partner. Ma Yan is 75. She’s Yanyan’s mother. She spends a
few hours in the park near her house every morning. To a distracted
eye, it might seem that she’s just passing time. A more careful
observer will notice a small badge pinned on her lapel. Many old
people are wearing a similar badge, with either a “0″ or “I” displayed
on it. To those unfamiliar with Chinese culture, it might be difficult
to understand.

In China, it is common to see young boys playing snooker in the middle
of the street or women selling trinkets in unexpected corners. A great
part of people’s lives takes place outdoors. Among these activities,
we find old people like Ma Yan roaming public parks in search of
partners for their sons and daughters. The signs on their lapels, “I”
or “0″, indicate whether they are looking for a male or female
candidate.

This is only one of the ways for people to search for wives and
husbands. According to a marriage survey conducted among white collars
and recently published by Chinanews, 81 percent of the young people
interviewed tried to find marriage partners through friends and
colleagues, 47 percent through parents’ recommendation and 10 percent
through other matchmaking activities.

Since 2006, the city of Shenzhen holds an annual marriage fair for
white collars, and many companies organize meeting activities to
promote interaction and matching opportunities for their employees.

This phenomenon indicates that people are having difficulties finding
marriage partners. They also confirm the existence of heavy marriage
expectations.

Alternative choices: the underground scene

Other facts point towards a change in traditional patterns of sexual
conduct and relationships. A survey conducted by Durex a few years ago
showed that Chinese people ranged top in the rate of sexual activity.
An important element of Chinese gay culture is looking for casual
partners in public toilets and parks, or ‘cruising’, as they like to
call it. Surveys conducted on university BBS reveal an astonishing
rate of one night stands and group sex among university students and a
ramping increase of teenage pregnancy.

And there is still more: brothels, bath houses, extensive circulation
of porn materials. All this witnesses the existence of a thriving
underground sexual scene and changing patterns of relationship and
sexuality. It also proves something else: Chinese society is not so
traditional after all.

“I know all these things exist”, Yanyan says, “but they don’t appeal
to me. I’m maybe too old”.

It is people like Yanyan who are in the most delicate situation. They
cannot identify with the young generation, but they can neither adjust
to traditional demands. Caught up between the old and the new, they
find it difficult to find their place in the dynamics of a society in
continual transformation.

来自：http://www.womenofchina.cn/Issues/Marriage_Family/18508.jsp