Being Chinese | Put a ring on it? Chinese women don’t need marriage any more
- Women in China once believed marriage to be a necessary passage in life. Now they know they can choose to follow their desires
After I turned 20, Nai, my maternal grandma, started to read me the matrimonial advertisements in our local newspapers. One typical ad would go: “So-and-so, male, 27-year-old teacher, 1.73m, university degree with a monthly income of almost 1,000 yuan, looking for an attractive girl, medium height, between 21 and 25.” For her, my single status was a rash, getting itchier with every year as she fretted that I would miss the marriage boat.
My mother, subtler, would urge me to try harder in “solving my personal problem”. I enjoyed pointing out that she often complained that Nai had ruined her chances of marital happiness. When my mother was 20, Nai, through a neighbour, introduced a man to her and pressured her into marriage within the year. That man, my father, turned out to be not so nice. Divorce, however, was unthinkable for a woman of her generation.
Despite my parents’ unhappy marriage, I did want to get married. I was just taking my time to find the right one. My mother appreciated this but also added: “Make it the priority. A woman without a husband is nothing.”
In some ways, I understand why Nai was so keen for us to have our own families. It was through marriage that she changed her fate. As a young orphan, she was sold into a brothel, where she met my grandfather. He later installed her as his concubine. After the Communists took power and men were allowed just one spouse, my grandfather decided to keep his sweet-natured concubine as his legal wife.
As a young woman, I never asked myself why I wanted to get married. I thought everybody desired marriage, a necessary passage in life.
How things have changed.
