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Attitudes to love and marriage continue to change since the first Marriage Law was introduced in 1950, and have to play catch-up with people's evolving love lives since then.
Wu Bo, the 55-year-old monther of a 23-year-old unwed son, was taken aback when Ma Nuo,22, a model from Beijing said on China's most popular TV reality program Don't Bother Me:"I'd rather weep in a BMW than smile on the bicycle of my true love."
"I don't like to generalize, but Ma's words show that young women today worship money, They won't get married unless their boyfriends have a house and a car. They're so mercenary,"Wu says.
A civil servant in Chengdu, Wu remembers her own younger days in the 1980s as being rosy and romantic.
"Material success was not so important to my generation. Most of my peers wanted to find a mate who was a spiritual match more than one who was materially rich."
"Being materialistic is not our fault. Our whole society is already that way,"says Sun Mei,24, a project officer with a Canadian company in Beijing.
"If I marry a poor man for love, I will lost face,and the quality of my life will be worse than if I were single."
While the freedom to marry for love had become socially acceptable, divorce was not. As in marriage, couples had to get the permission of authorities before they could divorce.
In 1980,Yu Luojin,a writer in Beijing, filed for divorce, claiming she was no longer compatible with her husband. But,incompatibility was not legal grounds for divorce under the existing Marriage Law.The term incompathibility was so foreign that Yu's appeal triggered a social controversy about the reasons for divorce.
With Yu Luijin's case, the 30-year-old Mariage Law no longer met the needs of the contemporaty social landscape.
In 1980, the first amendment to the Marriage Law was issued. Incompatibility was written into the articles of the new Marriage Law.
"Peolpe realized that love could be the reason for a marriage. They gradually gave up the old idea of sex as reserved for having children. They began to see sex as a way of expressing love and affection, and for the pleasure of body and soul,"says Chen Mingxia.
Love,affection and enjoyment became the standard by which many people judged the quality of their marriage.
Later the influence of Western-style sexual liberation affected marriage stability and in the 1990s, some old practices returned.
keeping an er nai, a concubine, or second wife, became a social phenomenon in big cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. Many yong women of low social status were willing to be kept by wealthy older men. Some even bore children with their sugar daddies.
"This not only jeopardized the legal rights of the women in the marriage. The rights of the er nai and their illegitimate children couldn't be realized either,"says Chen mingxia.
The Marriage Law was amended again to meet these new social changes. In 2003 second amendment to the Marriage Law was issued. In it,cohabitation of a married person with any third party was prohibited. It stipulated that man and wife should be faithful to each other, and respect each other.
Nowadays, another remarkable phenomenon in Chinese relationships has emerged, namely shan hun or "lightning marriages" In this case, a couple gets married shortly after their first date.
Most of the couples who enter into such quick marriages are people born in the 1980s.unlike their parents, this generation is coming of age in an era of exploding wealth and rising expectations for material success.
No specific figures are available for lightning marriages.However,it seems clear that quickie risk a quickie divorce.The latest figures from the Ministry of Civil Affairs reveals that,in 2009, China had 2.47million divorces,an 8.8 percent rise over 2008.Many were the result of lightning marriages.
"Most 1980s people are only children. They are self-centered and not tolerant in relationships,"says Chen."If they want something, they want it now,the same with their relationships.They are prone to get divorced quickly instead of taking time to improve themselves and become more tolerant."
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Attitudes to love and marriage continue to change since the first Marriage Law was introduced in 1950, and have to play catch-up with people's evolving love lives since then.
Wu Bo, the 55-year-old monther of a 23-year-old unwed son, was taken aback when Ma Nuo,22, a model from Beijing said on China's most popular TV reality program Don't Bother Me:"I'd rather weep in a BMW than smile on the bicycle of my true love."
"I don't like to generalize, but Ma's words show that young women today worship money, They won't get married unless their boyfriends have a house and a car. They're so mercenary,"Wu says.
A civil servant in Chengdu, Wu remembers her own younger days in the 1980s as being rosy and romantic.
"Material success was not so important to my generation. Most of my peers wanted to find a mate who was a spiritual match more than one who was materially rich."
"Being materialistic is not our fault. Our whole society is already that way,"says Sun Mei,24, a project officer with a Canadian company in Beijing.
"If I marry a poor man for love, I will lost face,and the quality of my life will be worse than if I were single."
While the freedom to marry for love had become socially acceptable, divorce was not. As in marriage, couples had to get the permission of authorities before they could divorce.
In 1980,Yu Luojin,a writer in Beijing, filed for divorce, claiming she was no longer compatible with her husband. But,incompatibility was not legal grounds for divorce under the existing Marriage Law.The term incompathibility was so foreign that Yu's appeal triggered a social controversy about the reasons for divorce.
With Yu Luijin's case, the 30-year-old Mariage Law no longer met the needs of the contemporaty social landscape.
In 1980, the first amendment to the Marriage Law was issued. Incompatibility was written into the articles of the new Marriage Law.
"Peolpe realized that love could be the reason for a marriage. They gradually gave up the old idea of sex as reserved for having children. They began to see sex as a way of expressing love and affection, and for the pleasure of body and soul,"says Chen Mingxia.
Love,affection and enjoyment became the standard by which many people judged the quality of their marriage.
Later the influence of Western-style sexual liberation affected marriage stability and in the 1990s, some old practices returned.
keeping an er nai, a concubine, or second wife, became a social phenomenon in big cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai. Many yong women of low social status were willing to be kept by wealthy older men. Some even bore children with their sugar daddies.
"This not only jeopardized the legal rights of the women in the marriage. The rights of the er nai and their illegitimate children couldn't be realized either,"says Chen mingxia.
The Marriage Law was amended again to meet these new social changes. In 2003 second amendment to the Marriage Law was issued. In it,cohabitation of a married person with any third party was prohibited. It stipulated that man and wife should be faithful to each other, and respect each other.
Nowadays, another remarkable phenomenon in Chinese relationships has emerged, namely shan hun or "lightning marriages" In this case, a couple gets married shortly after their first date.
Most of the couples who enter into such quick marriages are people born in the 1980s.unlike their parents, this generation is coming of age in an era of exploding wealth and rising expectations for material success.
No specific figures are available for lightning marriages.However,it seems clear that quickie risk a quickie divorce.The latest figures from the Ministry of Civil Affairs reveals that,in 2009, China had 2.47million divorces,an 8.8 percent rise over 2008.Many were the result of lightning marriages.
"Most 1980s people are only children. They are self-centered and not tolerant in relationships,"says Chen."If they want something, they want it now,the same with their relationships.They are prone to get divorced quickly instead of taking time to improve themselves and become more tolerant."
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