Family ties take new shapes in a prosperous China
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By Robert Marquand
| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BEIJING –
Pang Rongchang was ready to join Mao Zedong's revolutionary army in the late 1940s. But before he left his Hubei town, his father did what generations of men did for their sons: secured a wife for him. There was no discussion. The bride was hand-carried to the groom's doorstep from the next village; the marriage was that day. The two had never met before - then lived 50-plus years together.
By contrast, Pang's son, Liping, married, divorced, then fell in love with Wang Zhe, who works at a Japanese joint venture. They met at Ditan Park by the gate, set up by three layers of friends. She saw Liping was "a good one." It started raining, they went inside for tea, and it became a second marriage for them both.
The cultural distance traveled in a single generation - from marriage by a father's dictate to a second marriage by choice - points to profound changes in China's family life. The venerable patriarchy, where four generations sit at a dumpling-laden dinner table overseen by the elder male, is disappearing - and along with it, a tradition that has ensured stability for thousands of years.
Now a diverse range of family types is found in urban China, altering the old social order in the world's fastest rising power. To a Western eye, the family types seem common. But they are very new here: single-parent families, double-income families with no kids, "singles" by choice, cohabitating couples, and second marriages. Gays and lesbians are more tolerated, though they are not recognized. The most common emerging type is the "nuclear family," husband, wife, and child living apart from elders.
"The numbers of all types of new families are on the increase," says Shen Chong Lin, a family sociology pioneer in Beijing. "Before we didn't really see them, they weren't noticed. Now they are. Family used to be part of the means of production. Marriage was a social decision. Now it is an individual decision. Family is a hot topic. Every Chinese is an expert on family now."
A break with the past
For centuries one family type existed here: patriarchy. The wife went to live with the husband's family. Family was a male hierarchy, practical, based on need. It offered food, shelter, status, regeneration.
After 1949 the family was turned toward nation-building, and it served the state. But despite dramatic laws making husbands and wives equal in theory, the basic family structure survived. Two things changed that: the "one child policy" and Deng Xiaoping's epic liberalizing in 1979.
From then on everything accelerated, including the state's withdrawal from people's family lives and an end to the patriarchal structure.
"You can barely find a patriarchal family in the city now," says Li Yinhe, a leading family sociologist in China. "Sixty percent of Beijing families are nuclear, run by husband and wife. In Chinese tradition, you need a male heir to carry on the name. You bear children until there is a son; it is extremely important for identity. Yet now 50 percent have no son, and many don't worry about it."
China is now 15 years into an economic "miracle" made possible by the combination of endless cheap labor, a colossus of east coast factories, and by a national capacity for organization and adaptability. The ability to earn enough to buy a car and apartment in the city has created new alternatives and expectations. Many younger Chinese talk about education, travel abroad, fulfillment, and spirituality - as well as work. Families in the city are now accommodating a culture of cellphones, a drying up of the number of aunts and uncles in the family, and acceptance of divorce.
After a 'jump into the sea'
Wang Zhe's story (Liping's second wife) is characteristic of so many young Chinese over the past 20 years: She married a boy from her state-run factory. He was the charmer in her work unit, and she fell hard. They exchanged glances for months. Finally he took her to "get registered." Then, like many Chinese in the late 1980s, he decided to "jump into the sea" - he quit the security of his job and went into business. His noodle shop was a big success, and two more followed. But the boy never had money before, and it got to him. He started partying and drinking. He lost his money - then the restaurants. Wang found him with another women, divorced him, and went back to the factory in what was a period of personal desolation.
Wang's family mobilized on behalf of the daughter. They put out the word that she was jilted, and her need for a good husband. She also rallied and started learning English. She met and married Pang. He is a stage designer and camera buff, and the couple travel abroad, like many Chinese today, on photo vacations. The shelves in their carpeted, comfortable townhouse are packed with exotic souvenirs of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia.
Speaking of her own voyage from factory hand to bilingual white-collar worker, Wang Zhe says with a quiet smile, "My mind has been opened."
Family size in the world's most populous nation has shrunk steadily for 50 years. In 1980, the figure was 4.2, today it is below 3.4. More than half of all Chinese families are now three persons. Men and women in the city are marrying later. Men often wait until 30. Women wait until their mid-20s. Couples tying the knot in their early or mid-20s get odd stares by peers.
"You don't know what kind of person is suitable for you until later," says Sabrina, as she calls herself. She met her husband two years ago when they were both forced to live inside the same building during the SARS outbreak. "You don't understand love when you are young. The questions I have are not the questions our parents had. It is hard to find the right one."
Sabrina and her husband may not have children at all, she says. Both work, she for a university, he for China Telcom. They laugh about being a double-income no kids couple, since they didn't plan it that way. "We aren't going to have a child because everyone else does. We need to be ready," she says.
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