Family life in modern China
By Marijke van der Meer
The ancient Chinese sage Confucius once described the harmony
between husband and wife and children as "the music of lutes and
harps". The nfluence of Confucius on Chinese family life -
particularly his teachings on filial piety and on the relationship
between stable family life and a stable state - is still felt
today.
Since the days of Confucius, however, a great deal has changed,
especially so following since the creation of the People's
Republic.
In 1950, the new communist rulers introduced a new marriage law; it
was the first law enacted in communist China, even before the
constitution. By outlawing age-old practices like concubinage,
bigamy, the bartering of brides and dowry, the new rulers signalled
a break with the feudal marital system and redefined the relation
between family and state.
Family life in China has undergone equally radical changes in the
post-Maoist era. The first single parent's club in China was
recently set up in Beijing, reproductive services have been made
legal for single women, telephone advice lines for gays have been
set up in Shanghai, and the Divorce Club of Shanghai was launched
on Valentine's Day this year.
With the introduction of market reforms, increased urbanization, a
rising level of prosperity and education, and growing private
responsibility, Chinese family life is increasingly reflecting
trends in the West.
One-child policy
However, a unique aspect of family life in China is the country's
one-child policy, which has been enforced by the authorities since
about 1978 and which restricts families in the cities to one child
only. In the countryside, couples may try for a son if the
first-born is a daughter, and exceptions are made for certain
regions and minorities.
Nevertheless, the one-child policy has had a profound effect on the
relationship between parents and children, the status of women,
marital prospects, education, urban planning and even the design of
cars. The first generation of children of the one-child policy have
now reached adulthood and are developing their own unique new view
of family life.
The one-child policy has succeeded in bringing down the birth rate
from 26 percent to 8 percent a year. However, the traditional
importance of male lineage and of the son as a support to the whole
family, especially in rural areas, in combination with reproductive
technology and the one-child policy, has resulted in a serious
sex-ratio imbalance in China today.
"Lonely hearts club"
The gender imbalance has now reached 120 boys for every 100 girls
born. It is believed that 40 million men will not find wives in the
next ten years, some of them are already living in "bachelor
ghettos", and China has been described as "the world's biggest
lonely hearts club". Cases have been reported of women being
abducted, and because of the importance of carrying on the male
lineage, some men resort to sharing or borrowing a wife, who is
then free to go after she has produced a son. The authorities have
tried to deal with the sex-ratio imbalance by, for example,
forbidding prenatal sex screening.
The problem is compounded by the migration of a huge "floating
population" of productive rural adults to the factories and cities
where their labour is fuelling China's economic boom. There are
villages where children and the elderly are left behind to care for
each other. Few migrant rural women are willing to return to the
countryside. They hope to find urban husbands in order to obtain
urban registration, so they can qualify for better housing,
pensions, jobs and health care schemes.
Infidelity
While families are spreading out to wherever work can be found,
marital infidelity and especially cohabitation have become so
predominant that the new marriage law of 2001 explicitly condemns
bigamy and polygamy.
"My personal experience is that it is unspoken, people gossip and
everyone knows in the village, but it is not openly articulated, as
long as it doesn't break the unity or economic cohesion of the
family," says Melody Chia-wen Lu, an affiliated fellow with the
International Institute for Asian Studies at the University of
Leiden, specialised in gender issues and migration.
Postponement
In contrast to the rural population, young educated urban
professionals are facing very different problems when it comes to
marriage and family life. With the increased privatisation of
education, health care and care for the elderly, they are under
enormous pressure to get excellent grades, to get into university
and compete for good jobs. That means postponing marriage until
they can afford to buy an apartment and provide well for a child.
The average
marrying age is now 28 for men, 27 for women.
Chinese citizens are required by law to care for their elderly
parents, and being an only child adds to the pressure. At the same
time, surveys show that 40 percent of men and 47 percent of women
disagree with the idea of raising a child for one's own security.
Melody Lu believes the emotional aspect of parenthood is gaining
ground over considerations of economic security.
Nuclear norm
The nuclear family is quickly becoming the norm, especially in the
cities, where 60 percent of families consist only of parents and
children. Extended families, including all one's cousins and
grandparents and aunts and uncles, get together to renew their
bonds at least once a year, especially during the Chinese Spring
Festival. The first generation of offspring born under the
one-child policy still have aunts and uncles and cousins, but many
of their children
will not.
As in the West, some young urban professionals, including women,
are opting to remain single, while some couples settle on being
"dinkies" (double-income-no-kids), and there is more divorce,
particularly in the cities. The 2001 revision of the family law
reformed the legal position of divorce, simplifying the procedure.
Melody Lu says marriage is no longer a life-long thing but a
contract between two individuals. "It's easier for urban people to
treat marriage as a contract, but in the rural area there is still
the cultural stigmatisation", Lu points out,
"You have more trouble finding a new partner. In fact a lot of
divorced women have to migrate to find another husband, because it
is very difficult to remarry in the same locality."
Furthermore, because of the continuing importance of the father-son
axis, an only son is likely to be placed under the custody of his
father, not his mother.
Change, not decline
All in all, family life in China is changing but is not by any
means in decline. There is more emphasis on personal choice and
freedom, more equality of the sexes, and there is an even stronger
bond between parents and children than under the collective
security of the Maoist era. Parents are prepared to make huge
sacrifices for their children, partly because "always in the back
of their mind is old age security", says Melody Lu.
The fact that it is the daughter-in-law that is usually the primary
provider of care for the elderly has also changed the status and
value of women within the family. And even though the trend is
towards a smaller family unit, the proverbial Chinese family
business is one institution that continues to thrive. Chinese
family businesses account for one-third of the names on the
Fortune-500 list of the world's biggest companies.