Love and Money Reshape Family in ChinaGetting married in today's China is far easier than
Love and Money Reshape Family in China
Getting married in today's China is far easier than even four years ago: The couple took a number, waited in line, and said "I do" in just over an hour. The certificate costs about $1.15. Marriage forms no longer ask frightening questions about parents' history or Communist Party affiliations. Nor must couples seek permission from their "work unit" boss, a major shift from last year. Marriage and public security bureaus are reportedly no longer connected.
Today, urban Chinese are free as never before to pursue what have become the twin engines of family dynamics heres love and money. In the 200 cities with more than a million people, love and money are dictating historic changes in the traditional family that had already been shrinking due to the one-child policy. Dating and romance are in, living with parents is out, wives and daughters enjoy enhanced roles. A new galaxy of attitudes and values is transforming the basic building block of Chinese society.
Love and money
Now, for the first time on a wide scale, Chinese may pursue a spouse of their own choosing. Only 2 in 10 young Chinese used to choose their life partner; today, 9 in 10 say they have or will, acc6rding to a China Daily report. Along with this, a discourse of "feeling" and "emotion" that used to exist mainly in elite circles is now heard at all levels, from tycoons to taxi drivers. Shops advertise "passion styles" for cars and kitchens. Romance novels are a rage.
In the past, couples often did not demonstrate affection inside a strict, loyalty-based family hierarchy. It was better not to, as Harvard sociologist Martin Why to points out, since it might suggest a son's loyalty was not entirely clear. Couples always lived with the husband's parents, and in times of argument, sons were expected to side with family elders, not wives. Sons were dependent on parents. Divorce was discouraged and nearly non-existent. Marriages were arranged among families or inside "work units"; a main criterion was the communist or "revolutionary" credentials of the spouse's family.
But now marriage is based on feeling. "I want to fall in love," says Ms. Xin, a 19-year-old student at a shopping mall. "I don't want to moan forever about money and jobs. Love is first. Other things are important but not first."
Yet the dreams of young women like Xin can be tempered by economic realities. She's part of the first generation who must find their own jobs and earn their own wages. This creates some anxiety. Apartments are no longer subsidized; jobs no longer guaranteed. Many parents have no advice for their offspring about a China evolving at a bewildering rate.
Wealth, it turns out, has caused many urban Chinese to think and behave in ways that don't always include families. Boarding schools have tripled in the past decade. Extramarital relations have skyrocketed. As the cost of living increases in urban China, many young women, often from outside the city, are subsidized by men.
A new concept: dating
China has 3,000-plus years of feudal order, guaranteed partly by a stable family. That family is now undeniably changing. Consider these structural shifts: Dating is a new concept, maybe four years old. Before, one never talked about a "boyfriend" or "girlfriend". A special friend was a "partner," and it implied an impending marriage. No longer. In the city, females will ask males out. Young Chinese want to get to know one another. The American "eight-minute date" has just hit Beijing.
In China's shift to a market economy, one key marriage player has been phased out: the work- unit boss. For 50 years, the boss was a de facto sergeant inside state-run enterprises. He or she policed behavior. among the sexes, assisted with family problems, often helped set up single women approaching the unofficial "spinster" a
A.Y
B.N
C.NG