Marriage in modern China

Marriage in China has undergone change during the country's reform and opening period, especially because of new legal policies like the New Marriage Law of 1950 and the Family planning policy in place from 1979 to 2015. The major transformation in the twentieth century is characterized by the change from traditional structures for Chinese marriage, such as the arranged marriage, to one where the freedom to choose one’s partner is generally respected. However, both parental and cultural pressures are still placed on many individuals, especially women, to choose socially and economically advantageous marriage partners. While divorce remains rare in China, the 1.96 million couples applying for divorce in 2010 represented a rate 14% higher than the year before and doubled from ten years ago. Despite this rising divorce rate, heterosexual marriage is still thought of as a natural part of the life course and as a responsibility of good citizenship in China.

Traditionally, marriage life was based on the principles of the Confucian ideology. This ideology formed a culture of marriage that strove for the “Chinese family idea, which was to have many generations under one roof". Confucianism grants order and hierarchy as well as the collective needs over those of the individual. It was the maintenance of filial piety that dictated a traditional behavior code between men and women in marriage and in the lifetime preparation for marriage. The segregation of females and the education of males were cultural practices which separated the two sexes, as men and women would occupy different spheres after marriage.

“Marriage was under the near-absolute control of family elders and was considered an important part of a family's strategy for success”. The system of patrilineal succession and ancestral worship left no place for daughters within their natal family trees. Traditionally, brides became a part of their husband’s family and essentially cut ties with their natal families with special emphasis placed on a wife’s ability to produce a male heir. As arranged marriages were customary, husband and wife often did not meet each other until the day of the wedding. Married life consisted of a complex and rigid family arrangement with the role of the male to provide for the family and that of the female to care of the domestic duties within the home, as dictated by the ideas conveyed in Song Ruozhao’s Analects for Women. Although Confucianism is no longer thought of an explicit belief system in China, it has created a lasting legacy of traditional assumptions and ideas about marriage. Thus, it is still a major barrier to achieving gender equality and women’s sexual autonomy in marriage.

...
Wikipedia