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Love and money reshape family in China
By Robert Marquand (The Christian Science Monitor)
Updated: 2006-01-19 11:10
Bright and earnest, Zhu Zi and Gao Yanping fill out a wedding application in
neat Chinese characters at a marriage registry above a bakery.
DATING: A couple hold
each other as they walk through a Beijing shopping area. In the changing
values of urban China, love and emotion are playing a greater role in
relationships.[The Christian Science
Monitor]
| Zhu waited years to
find a husband like Gao. It was Zhu, a little saucy, who first phoned Gao, a
little quiet. They hit it off: Both are under 30, engineers, smart, living in
Beijing, and, most crucial, they are from the same province, Shaanxi, which
means annual visits home together. They lived together unmarried for 14 months,
something illegal until last year, before Zhu, tired of waiting, proposed. Gao
right away said OK.
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 here: 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.
Yet if it is easier to tie the knot in urban China, little else about
marriage and family is so simple in a country constantly rebuilding, protean,
where the pursuit of wealth and the sense of time are accelerating.
"It is easier to meet people now, but it is harder to find the right one,"
says a young female junior exec as she sips from her water bottle. "We never had
cellphones or text messages before, and we can meet many new people every day.
But our expectations for a partner are so high that few can match them."
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