Adventures in China

Traditionally, marriage has worked on an arranged marriage model. This model is still used in many of the more rural areas of China, but the larger cities are starting to change. Unfortunately, this change seems to be primarily driven by Western media ideas of love and relationships.

Some of the younger women I knew did have boyfriends (maybe half of them). In Luoyang, it was considered inappropriate for people to start dating until they graduated from high school. It seemed like many of the women I knew started dating in college, then continued dating after returning to their parents' homes. Their parents seemed to keep relatively strict control over the female's activities, but let the boys roam free.

I was never able to ascertain what level of sexual intimacy evolved in dating because the women were very shy and uneducated about sexual activity. None of the women I met knew anything about HIV/AIDS. They believed it was primarily transmitted through drug needles and didn't realize it could be transmitted from sexual contact. Whatever their level of contact, these nice, highly-educated girls seemed to only have 2 or 3 boyfriends before settling into marriage.

What was most troubling to me was the lack of ideas about partnership. In arranged marriages, the goal is to co-exist together peacefully. Many of the arranged marriages I saw did not seem particularly intimate or loving, but the people in them did not expect it, either. Sometimes the arranged marriages did not work out and they had to divorce, but more often the people were comparable enough to raise a family together and feel fulfilled. Dating and love marriages are a very new idea, and most of the ideas have come from movies like Titanic. Sometimes I felt like I was stuck in the American 1950's where sexual pleasure was never mentioned and women would say things like, "I know he loves me because he bought me this dress." There was never any talk of how supportive or encouraging their partners were in their lives, careers, or around the home. It made me a little sad that these women hoped for this deep emotional bond and were willing to pretend that materialism was the same thing.

Then again, this is the first generation of people in China to date. It will be interesting to see how quickly they become more savvy about chosen relationships.