Family Life in China by William R. Jankowiak Robert L. Moore

Author:William R. Jankowiak,Robert L. Moore [Moore, L., Robert, &&, Jankowiak, R., William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published: 2016-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

Marriage and Gender in Rural and Urban China

Rural China continues to follow different patterns from those typical of the more globally connected and prosperous urban world. For one thing, marriages in which parents take an active part by arranging introductions for their children (that is, semi-arranged marriages) are much more common in the countryside as compared to the city. Also more common are marriages in which economic and other pressures result in women being essentially coerced into marriages that are not to their liking. Pickowicz and Wang cite the case of Li Meidu, a young woman in rural Hebei who had been strongly urged by her impoverished family to marry the son of the prosperous Wei family, a young man who was mentally challenged and otherwise completely lacking in any of the qualities that would make him a good husband in the eyes of his fellow villagers. The pressures from her family were so compelling and the monetary rewards offered by the Weis so appealing that Li Meidu eventually agreed to the marriage, though her demeanor and her behavior in general made it clear to her husband and the entire village that she was only in the relationship for the money—and for her family's sake (Pickowicz and Wang 2002:58). Other women described by these authors agreed to unappealing marriages by being betrothed when they were too young to resist and by beatings or threats of beatings from the woman's father. Patriarchal authority has clearly managed to live on in some parts of rural China.

There is also a trend of women migrating from poor western regions (Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou) to some of the more prosperous provinces of coastal China, such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Hebei (Fan and Huang 1998). In some cases Chinese men are also obtaining wives from Southeast Asian countries (Lu and Wang 2010, Zhang 2011). Fan and Huang regard this trend not as a reflection of arranged marriages, but as cases in which, for the most part, women take matters into their own hands and seek to improve their economic status by locating, with the help of professional matchmakers, husbands whose area of residence offers improved opportunities. In general, urban areas are much more prosperous than rural ones in China and rural provinces located close to major coastal cities are more prosperous than those located further inland. The shortage of women, combined with the growing value placed on the monetary economy, has given many young women new resources of power. For example, they have redefined the bride price as something they and not their parents receive. Moreover, they are insisting on a higher bride price. If they divorce, they remain a valuable resource and, unlike their male counterparts, can and do remarry. In the early twenty-first century, rural women in parts of northern China have come to be seen as the more powerful gender (Li 2013, 2014).

More and more rural marriages today are relatively egalitarian. Yan reports from Xiajia village in Heilongjiang province that free-choice marriages gained a foothold in the 1960s and 1970s.

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