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Married at First Sight has captured the attention of Australians who are drawn to the drama between complete strangers matched and made to live together as a couple. But the concept is not far from how marriages worked in China just a few decades ago.
Key points:
- A new law in 1950 outlawed arranged marriages and enabled women to divorce
- Most young Chinese are pushed by older family members to get married: survey
- More than 1.8 million couples divorced in mainland China in the first half of 2017
For generations, parents arranged their children's marriages by following the principle of "matching doors and windows", where the couple's compatibility was assessed by their social and economic standing.
"Marrying first, then falling in love" became a reality for many couples who had to gradually learn about each other after tying the knot, and the concept remained relevant for decades to come for those who married for practicality, rather than for pure love.
Yaosheng Zhang, 83, admitted it was more than just mutual attraction that brought him and his wife Xiuzhu Huang together 60 years ago.
For example, another serious consideration was whether his 18-year-old wife could get employment at his state-owned tractor factory and become financially independent from her family.
"Some company policies were good and some company policies were not so good," he said of a time when all companies were state-owned and offered different benefits.
"My company in Luoyang in central China provided married couples a property to live in and introduced jobs to their spouse if they didn't have a job.
"My monthly 78 yuan salary ($16) was also higher than her father's and it was enough for our living expenses."
Like many couples in the 1950s, Xiuzhu and Yaosheng were recommended to each other by family and friends, but in those days even Communist Party officials sought to play matchmaker.
Arranged marriages outlawed, romance becomes political
The Marriage Law of 1950 outlawed arranged marriages, enabled women to divorce their husbands, and made it illegal for men to have multiple wives.
Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, the founding director of the Centre for Family and Population Research (CFPR) at the National University of Singapore, said the new law played a significant role in addressing gender equality in China.
However, women continued to face pressure to marry workers and farmers to prove their socialist values during Mao's era, she said.
Pan Wang, author of the book Love and Marriage in Globalising China and an academic at the School of International Studies at UTS, said it was also a time when class struggle and political campaigns dominated everyday life, and people married within the same class.
She said people often chose partners based on political orientation, which meant marrying someone who had Communist Party membership.
"Interestingly at that time, a number of educated youth married farmers and workers just to prove their correct political belief — some of them wanted to be promoted in the Communist Party," she said.
Fast forward to China today, Dr Wang said women were now more empowered, more financially independent and had more decision-making power.
"They don't really need to find a man to ensure their financial security like in the past," she said.
"That's why we see women become increasingly selective in terms spouse selection, whereas for men, they're still looking for physically attractive and beautiful women, especially those who are able to bear children to continue the family line."
'Bachelors are bank cards, bachelorettes are properties'
While love and marriages are more liberated in China, parents still play an important but less influential role in their children's spouse selection, with some taking matters into their own hands.
In Shanghai, hundreds of parents gather at what is widely-known as the "marriage corner" or "marriage market" in People's Park every weekend to display their children's personal information on posters laid out on a row of colourful umbrellas, in the hope of finding them an ideal match.
One poster reads: "Male born in July, 1980, unmarried, 1.71 metres tall, 63 kilograms, graduate diploma, in good health … earnt 970,000 yuan ($198,400) after tax last year … have six properties altogether."
"Seeking a female in good health ... between 1.62 metres to 1.7 metres tall, between 46 and 56 kilograms, with natural big eyes."
In a series of photographs called The Happiness of Obedience, 34-year-old Chinese artist Yingguang Guo captured the scenes of the marriage corner about two years ago as part of a project.
She pretended to be a single woman and used a hidden camera to document her experience — including fielding uncomfortable questions from parents asking about her age — and her story became an internet sensation.
"In this marriage market, income, education, height, and age are all comparable to a person's value," she said.
An elderly man told Yingguang that his theory was that "bachelors are like bank cards, and the bachelorettes are like properties".
"He told me that how much money a guy has on his bank card determines what kind of girl he can pick up in this market.
"The girl's appearance is the property type, and the age is the location of the property.
"Good property type and location cost more than the others. And they said I am like a property that is well designed but located in the outer suburbs because I am old."
'Leftover women' and 'bare branches'
Chinese bachelors and bachelorettes who remain single after their late-20s face immense pressure to get married and have children, with derogatory terms such as "leftover women" and "bare branches" given to those who remain unmarried beyond a certain age.
More than 85 per cent of young Chinese have been pushed by older family members to get married, according to a report by state media Xinhua, citing a survey of nearly 2,000 people by China Youth Daily.
More than 69 per cent surveyed said they felt pressured when being pushed.
About four years ago, Yan Lei, a 29-year-old from central China, left home to look for a job in Beijing after studying abroad in London in the hope of escaping the pressure from her family to get married.
"Not only did my parents urge me, even my aunties, family friends, and neighbours would ask me why I did not have someone to marry. I felt so helpless," she said.
"I think, in the eyes of my parents' generation, my life would not be happy if I am not married.
"But the reality is that they all live in a pretty illusion that marriage is equal to happiness."
Unlike older generations who may have stayed in an unhappy marriage, divorce is no longer taboo in China.
According to data from China's civil affairs departments and marriage registries, more than 1.8 million couples divorced in mainland China in the first half of 2017, up 10.3 per cent from the same period in 2016.
Topics: community-and-society, family-and-children, marriage, china, asia
First posted