Marriage in modern China

[3] Despite the rising divorce rate, marriage is still thought of as a natural part of the life course and as a responsibility of good citizenship in China.

The segregation of females and the education of males were cultural practices that separated the two sexes, as men and women would occupy different spheres after marriage.

[8] 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.

[14] It prohibited concubinage and marriages when one party was sexually powerless, suffered from a venereal disease, leprosy, or a mental disorder.

[16] This provision “[stresses] the obligation of children to care for aging parents.”[5] Women now are not required to be obedient to or to serve their in-laws anymore, and married couples are able to have more intimate relationships.

[25] Divorce laws in China have undergone significant changes throughout history, reflecting the evolution of Chinese societal and cultural norms.

A man might divorce his wife under the Qing legal code for improper behavior (gossip, jealousy, adultery, theft, lack of filiality toward in-laws), sickness, or inability to bear a son.

In court, women shared stories of husbands who left home to find work but either went missing or were unable to send money back, resulting in wives struggling to provide for themselves and their children.

Wives of Nationalist soldiers faced long separations from their husbands, who were unable to communicate or send remittances across Japanese lines.

[citation needed] Escaping home purchase limits refers to a practice where couples exploit loopholes in regulations by getting a fake divorce, allowing them to buy additional properties under each person's name.

Several media outlets initiated a public vote on whether to support the implementation of a divorce cooling-off period system in December 2019, well before the law was announced.

For example, they say the legislators initially "assumed" that people's intention to divorce was an irrational decision, an assumption that many considered self-righteous and paternalistic overreach.

[43] Some people fear that the cooling-off period will make it harder for the initiator of the divorce, mostly women, who have historically been the vulnerable party in the marriage.

Her sister reported that when they noticed an ax near the entrance of her old house, Kan made a remark stating that her husband might be planning to kill her.

People argue that making the divorce process more complex and time-consuming without providing comprehensive protection to women who suffer from domestic violence could lead to tragic consequences.

According to an Indiana University study, 80 percent of divorce petitions filed by women were denied on the first try, even with evidence of domestic violence present.

[6] Working-class women are often forced to juggle the double burden of doing the majority of the household labor with the waged work they must do to support their families.

[6] In particular, the May Fourth movement called for men and women to interact freely in public, and to make marriage a free choice based on true love.

[7] In January 2017, authorities in Kaili City, in the Guizhou province issued new rules banning wedding banquets for people who are marrying for the second time in an attempt to subdue public displays of extravagance.

[47] In December 2018 China’s ministry of civil affairs decreed at a conference on wedding reform that instead of an opulent event, weddings must "integrate core socialist values and excellent Chinese traditional culture into the construction of marriage and family", and "implement Xi Jinping’s important thoughts on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, especially on the construction of marriage and family".

[54] The marriage decisions in pre-modern China traditionally were made by parents with the help of matchmakers, and the fate of the children were determined at an early age.

In the last fifty years, data indicates that parental involvement in marriage decisions has decreased in all areas of China and among the majority of the population.

As the family is an important institution in Chinese culture, parents may no longer hold absolute control but continue to be influential in the decisions of their children’s marriages.

Marriage decisions are important to parents because families are understood not simply in the present but as lineages existing throughout time in which living generations pay tribute to ancestors.

[58] The practice also saves the groom's family from an expensive wedding, the average cost of which has been reckoned to have increased 4000 times in the last 30 years.

[59] In some cases, these young couples (usually in China's large cities) represent changing attitudes towards romantic love;[60] in others, they have found the soaring prices of real estate have made such speedy marriages more economical.

[64] The media conception of "leftover women" has instilled new anxieties into parents, especially those of college-educated daughters who have delayed marriage past their twenties.

[65] Most of the matchmaking candidates in these corners are females, which perpetuates the idea that there are more suitable men than women with which to form marriage partnerships.

[65] Cui Hun (催婚) is a common phenomenon in China that parents and relatives pressure unmarried people to marry before they're 30, particularly females.

Caring for the Next Generation Working Committee, a Communist Party-affiliated organization established by the State Council, surveyed in 2016 that 86% of people whose ages range from 25 to 35 were pressured by their parents to marry.