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However, studies have shown that these matchmaking corners have a success rate of less than 1 percent. Many Chinese find wry humor in the fact that men who hold doctoral degrees sit at the top of the food chain, while women who are just as educated often sit at the bottom. At the same time, seniors view matchmaking corners as a social activity, much like their beloved square dances and walking tours. At local marriage markets, they gather to gossip away the time and perhaps ease feelings of solitude or aimlessness.
Recently, an article about matchmaking went viral on Chinese social media. At a matchmaking market in the capital, one mother was quoted as saying: Matchmaking has become a source of controversy, as it relies on a cruel hierarchy loaded with prejudice and contempt. Those at the bottom are, naturally, poorly paid part-time workers without a city hukou , car, or house. Things get even more interesting when matchmaking collides with traditional superstition and entrenched gender discrimination. Matchmakers sometimes assume that female Ph.
Furthermore, even if a woman satisfies all the requirements of her potential suitors, she may yet be ignominiously relegated to the realm of the unmarriageable for the being born in the Year of the Sheep. This is because many elderly people cling to the superstition that most women who are born in the Year of the Sheep suffer misfortune in their family lives, ending up childless or widowed.
Even if young people continue to have an idealistic vision of love, bleak social realities force them to view marriage as a type of transaction. The overwhelming majority of young Chinese people disapprove of this hierarchy. An increasing number of young people believe in individualism, personal freedom, and modern science, but their elderly counterparts continue to uphold the values of traditional Chinese society.
This divide in public opinion is becoming more extreme, as is vividly demonstrated by debates surrounding matchmaking. Why is it, then, that the subject of Chinese matchmaking continues to foment interest and debate among young people? The answer is that this subject is a microcosm of the issues that cause anxiety in young people: Meanwhile, as real estate prices continue to soar , the struggle to succeed has become increasingly futile, as talent and ambition are no longer enough to afford a mortgage. Despite their intense contempt for Chinese-style matchmaking, they cannot help but feel torn between hating the culture of xiangqin and wondering if it might not be in their best interests.
Young people talk to each other during a matchmaking fair in Beijing, Dec. Subscribe to our newsletter. By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use. Sign in Forgot your password? Register Already have an account? Check Mail Now resend activation email. The ancient Chinese marriage customs have gone through five stages over 5, years: In the primitive society, the ancestors of the Chinese people lived in groups and had no fixed spouses, and they had sexual relationships indiscriminately with one another.
Owing to their weak gender awareness, they didn't felt ashamed and weren't bound by customs and etiquettes.
Finding love in ancient China
As the first marriage taboo in Chinese history, consanguineous marriage emerged during the middle Neolithic Age, which banned a parent-offspring marriage but allowed the marriage of people of the same generation such as the brother and sister of a family. As the second marriage taboo in Chinese history, exogamous marriage emerged in the middle and late Neolithic Age, which strictly banned the marriage between blood brothers and sisters, and it only allowed marriage among different social groups.
In the exogamous marriage stage, it was very common for the brothers of the same family to marry a wife from the other group, and she would be the wife of all the brothers in the family, and vice versa. As a transitional stage from the exogamous marriage stage to the monogamous marriage stage, the antithetic marriage or paired marriage was an unstable marriage between men and women during the late Neolithic Age, which was very different from modern monogamy and easily dissolved; and it retained some vestiges of group marriage with tolerance toward a husband's or wife's extramarital relationships.
As the patriarchal social system took place of the matriarchal social system, the private ownership of property came into being, on which the ancient monogamous marriage was based.
Finding love in ancient China
In the ancient monogamy marriage stage, the husband owned everything in the family, including his wife, children and property, and the main task of women was bearing children to carry on the paternal lineages. According to Confucianism, a marriage is the beginning of ethics and a wedding ceremony is the essence of etiquettes, which has a substantial influence on social stability, and only those marriages with formal wedding ceremonies are recognized by society.
The basic principles of an ancient marriage mainly involved the matched social status, the dictates of the parents and the advice of the matchmaker, the ban of the marriage for a couple with the same surname and the tolerance toward polygamy. The marriageable age was 20 for males and 16 for females in ancient China, and an ideal standard of marriage was well-matched in social and economic status for the two families.
Although it was superseded by the civil-service examination system in the Sui Dynasty , it was still a tradition for the concerned parties to get matched according to their social and economic status, which was followed by the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty Free love was absolutely banned in ancient China and was widely condemned as an offence to public decency according to the traditional Confucian ethic codes, so it was the task of parents to arrange marriage for their children in order to maintain order of the traditional patriarchal society.
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Not only was the arranged marriage formally favored by society, but it was also politically supported and enhanced by law in ancient China. Having never seen each other before their wedding day, this resulted in numerous unequal and loveless marriages. The forbidden marriage policy on people bearing the same surname was launched and carried out in the Western Zhou Dynasty BC BC to guarantee a clear feudal patriarchal hierarchy and order of inheritance such as the throne and property.
People of the same clan and surname were not allowed to get married in the Tang Dynasty , especially among members of royalty.