Dating and marriage
- More so than Westerners, many Chinese view dating as a pragmatic affair. It’s not always about finding love so much as it is about finding a potential marriage partner who fits with one’s own ideals. For example, although many men get married without a house and a car, Chinese women will often say that they’re looking for these things because that’s the sort of person who probably has a stable career and will be able to provide for her and their future children in the long-term.
- Yes, single men have a hard time making the list if they don’t own a house or an apartment, which in cities like Beijing and Shanghai are extremely expensive. And despite the gender imbalance, the pressure is particularly acute for women, who can be stigmatized as ‘left-over women’ if they pass the age of 26 or 27 without finding a husband. Men can find themselves similarly left-over if they wait too long to get married.
- Young Chinese adults are often under a lot of pressure from the elders in their family to find a good husband or wife and get married relatively early. Every parent is different, of course, but in general Chinese parents expect to be more involved in their children’s relationships. It’s not uncommon for parents and grandparents to set their children up on blind dates with suitable matches they’ve found.
- In the world’s most populous country, online dating has become a profitable industry as 200 million Chinese are eager to find a partner. For every 100 females aged below 24, there are over 110 males; overall, there are about 32 million more men than women in China. Such a skewed sex ratio has developed owing to the decades-long one-child policy and a preference for boys. The gender imbalance has given rise to a huge amount of dating, matchmaking, and relationship counseling services.
- Being single can totally suck, especially when you head home for holidays and face an endless barrage of parents’ interrogations, such as ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ ‘When are you getting married?’ or ‘You’re a failure.’ OK, that last one’s not a question. But you can easily shut mom and dad up by renting a lover online and showing off your new, awesome SO. Then you can totally milk sympathy from everyone when you lie and say you got dumped.
- In some parts of ancient China, ‘pigtails’ were associated with a girl’s marital status. A young girl would wear two pigtails, and after marriage, she would wear just one. This may have been a contributing factor to the Western view that pigtails are associated with children and young girls.