Love and marriage loom over Spring Festival
AS millions prepare to head home for Spring Festival, many single men and women are bracing for a grilling from relatives when they get there.
A report based on an online poll of nearly 130,000 singletons nationwide shows the number who complain about parental pressure over their marital status during the Chinese New Year holiday is rising.
Nearly 60% of men and 50% of women said they face such pressure, according to the 2016 Survey Report on Chinese Views of Relationships and Marriage, released by dating website Jiayuan. This is nearly double from 2015, while the figures in 2014 were 33% and 23% respectively, it said.
“My mother, aunts, uncles and even my grandmother have helped to arrange four blind dates for me with men they believe might be a good match during the seven-day holiday,” says Lin Qing, a 33-yearold bank clerk in Shanghai.
“Sometimes they also show me photos of a neighbour my age who just got married or of one of their friends who has just become a grandmother, which is their way of telling me that I shouldn’t waste any more time.”
Most singles think they have not encountered their ideal partner yet. Women who are highly cultured and steeped in propriety are most favoured by men, while family-oriented and considerate men are most favoured by women. The biggest turnoffs when looking for a spouse for men are women who are materialistic, unreasonable or narrow-minded. While being stingy and haggling over every ounce, having feminine qualities or lack- ing masculinity, and narrow mindedness in men are the top unacceptable traits by women.
The survey highlights a collective anxiety among those born in the 1950s, who experienced social instabilities such as a shortage of necessities and getting laid-off in their prime, says Xue Yali, a researcher with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Family Research Center.
“Because of their experiences, they dislike uncertainty of the future and are afraid that their children will suffer losses and failures,” Xue notes. “They usually can’t help with their career development, and can only help to urge them to start a family.”
Another reason for the rising trend, she adds, is that the topic of “leftover” men and women has had a lot of media coverage in recent years, so people feel more pressure to look for a spouse before it is too late.
The survey found that people in Jiangxi province feel the most pressure to get married, with 63% of both men and women complaining about the issue. The problem is also acute in Henan and Anhui provinces, according to the report.
“This is probably because people in these regions still hold to the conservative idea that the best age for marriage is in the early 20s, despite the fact that young people are postponing marriage,” says Meng Yuan, head of public relations in Jiayuan.
The report also reveals that about 63% of men care about whether their partner is willing to have a child, followed by 58% of men who care about their partner’s medical history and 41% who care about whether or not they live with their parents.
About 81% of women are concerned about men’s economic strength, followed by their medical history and sexual ability.
Around 26% of women want to command financial power in the family, while 17% of men hold the same opinion. But a more prevalent idea is “keeping finances independently but setting up a common savings account for women to command”.