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Price gets product as magnate deserves fair virgin
By Echo Shan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-01-10 16:49 Jane Austen once said, "A single man in possession
of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Vice-versa, it can be said in
today's money-driven China that an unmarried material girl is in a desperate and
even unconventional search of a wealthy man.
A young girl candidate in green
sweater is auditioned during the "sea choice" stage
by the wealthy wife hunter Liu
Qiang's attorney. [Nanfang Weekend] | The
curtain of a first ever wife-hunting scheme rose in an eyebrow-rising way back
in 2004. The first crab eater, a Shanghai-based industry magnate, posted a
full-page personal advertisement in a hundred newspapers throughout the country
- in search of a virgin wife.
Passionate while poised, Northeast-native billionaire Liu Qiang, 42, then a
single father to a five-year-old boy from his previous marriage, wanted to
restart a family life after a divorce.
"I am indeed searching for a wife rather than an ornamental piece of flesh to
restart my life," said Liu then.
He neglected nothing in setting tough standards for his future spouse.
Apart from ordinary qualifications such as fair skin, slim figure, and a
university diploma, Liu brazenly mentioned in his ads that he expected the lucky
woman to be a virgin.
Although Liu himself, a divorcee with a child, was no novice in sex,
surprisingly enough, his virgin-wife solicitation, while a tad chauvinistic,
hypocritical, and even insulting, were well received and attracted numerous
applications nationwide.
From a shortlist of several after rounds of "sea choices," the popular
bachelor finally handpicked a Shanghai girl to fill the slot. The finalist
outstood the others in having an extremely benign personality.
When asked whether she would help him wash his feet, the girl, with no
hesitation, replied, "Yes."
Another woman named Zhang Yin, a Zhejiang applicant who failed the final
audition with Liu Qiang, recently recounted the meeting in a satiric manner: "It
was kind of like fruit picking, and I was the helpless apple awaiting his favor
then."
"It was clear that I had no chemistry with him from the moment we first met,
but my failure to click with him really hurt," said Zhang. "He is such a wealthy
man and I desperately love money."
Rebutting others' snobbish criticism, Zhang showed not a trace of shyness,
saying, "No one has the right to interfere with my own choice and I have the due
right to pursue my dream of an affluent life."
When asked her idea about the virgin request, Zhang Yin once again showcased
her bluntness, saying, "The reason why we girls keep our chastity is just to ink
a fat deal when the time for marriage comes."
In a clash between of sex and traditional morality these girls lean to the
latter, keeping their cherries intact, but when faced with the thrilling
temptation of money, morality loses out, according to Guangzhou-based weekly
paper Nanfang Weekend.
In this unprecedented bout between value conscience and gold lure, the
ultra-rich drum for rare recourses, virgin spouses in this case, which in fact
is as valuable to these big shots as a high-end BMW sedan or a sky-high priced
suburban villa. In such an environment, virginal girls willingly compete to be a
mogul's wife, submitting to harsh demands for the sake of potential future
prosperity.
"The world is messy so don't boggle at the junction," says a character in the
recent Hong Kong film "Perhaps Love," which depicts an ambitious actress
clinging to stardom at the price of love and sex, "Love's merely a decoration
piece."
Surprisingly, those female applicants, usually having a university diploma,
are more upbeat with their chances for bonding with a big shot. They are
confident in their ability to foster love after securing a considerably large
bank account.
For Zhang Yin, it can't be any truer that it doesn't vary a lot to marry one
man from another. So why not take a rich one? "I have to admit only money can
bring me a sense of belonging and safety.
Her kind of mentality is not rare today. A newlywed couple living in Beijing
needs 1,068,000 yuan (US$131852) to start a marriage, including the cost of an
apartment, a car, and wedding expenditures.
The social norm of the financial burden usually falling on the man might be
the result of the lopsided male-female ratio, the women's liberation movement,
or some vestige of male-dominated tradition.
Young wives may feel in the dumps once debt bills come to them. Therefore,
many exclusively target the haves as husband hopefuls.
As a widespread saying goes, "You have to lead an arduous life on mortgage if
you marry a husband making 20,000 yuan (US$2479) per year." So eligible girls
brush up their eyes to land a man with a descent pay.
With no exceptions of the rules in a market economy, the "price" always gets
the "product." So no wonder the extremely rich claims that a fair virgin wife
that, comparatively speaking, is of great rarity in today's China.
A recent survey conducted in several universities in Nanjing of East China's
Jiangsu Province showed that 14.5 per cent of students are experienced in sex
before graduation, while those with any level of intimacy such as hugging and
kissing account for 70 per cent.
The society has grown more and more tolerant with premarital sex as a few
universities have pioneered in granting marriage permits to students.
Liu Qiang has succeeded in netting a fair virgin wife. Is the chastity that
the girl had kept absolutely for him? Or rather, is it more exclusively for an
abundant life?
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