Love and marriage in China

Chinese weddingPrevious articles on the “second wives” of well-to-do Chinese men have focused on how unfair it is that mistresses of corrupt officials become exorbitantly wealthy. Or on the government’s foot-dragging in putting marriage databases online. But in an article ostensibly about the branding of luxury goods, Tom Doctoroff, a leading authority on marketing in China, offers a cultural analysis of the phenomenon. (emphasis added)

Because China has never had a humanist revolution, sex and marriage have always been relatively divorced. That is why many Asian cultures have an immensely commercialised and categorised [sex industry]. … [I]f a husband is a man of means, and has a significant income, then he can take on a second wife without violating his obligation to his first wife. …

Second Wife culture is just one part of a much bigger and more interesting area which is the difference between love and marriage in China and the West. Marriage in the west is rooted in romantic passion, and although that passion evolves over time we basically assume that if it’s is [sic] gone from marriage it’s a shallow marriage. Yes, there are other concerns that surround it – children, money – but it’s not the core of the relationship.

In China it’s fundamentally true that a marriage is not between two individuals, it’s between two clans. Marriage is a way that people connect into a broader society in which the individual is not the basic productive unit. This has always been the case.

In China, a romance is not ideal unless it is also accompanied by commitment. In Chinese, when we translate “a diamond is forever”, we don’t mean that passion lasts forever. It translates as “he will do anything for you, forever”. And that’s why people buy a lot of things for their mistresses – that affection needs to be demonstrated, too.

There’s a TV show about dating whose title translates as “Don’t bother me if you’re not serious” [where women list the material things they expect from a man]. One of the more infamous contestants, Ma Nuo, caused an outcry after listing love as one of the things she was looking for. People accused her of lacking ‘morality’; what society forces people to look for in a marriage for the sake of their future stability and marriage. As it becomes more difficult to make ends meet, particularly with the skyrocketing cost of houses, the imperative of a practical marriage becomes even more pronounced.

This does not mean that the Chinese are incapable of love, it means that romantic love competes with that transactional element in a society where people are insecure because their individual interests are not institutionally protected.

Related links:
Are married people happier? Are parents?
The new Chinese middle class and syphilis
Couples who prefer to sleep alone: Your room or mine?
The essential foreignness of another culture
Cultural differences: Emoticons
Where were the melamine whistle blowers?
The persistence of melamine
The death of Wang Bei: Cosmetic surgery as a moral choice

Resources:

Image: Fox News

Tom Doctoroff, China’s Second Wives, Canvas 8, February 15, 2011

Chito Romana, The Return of the Chinese Concubine?, ABC News, September 7, 2009

Associated Press, Checking Cheats: China Plans Online Marriage Database, Fox News, January 5, 2011

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