The State and The Individual: Changing Marriage Patterns in Rural North China
Introduction
Marriage, a multi-dimensional institution at the intersection of economic and social relationships, psychological needs for intimacy, and changing contexts of gender identities, has been examined closely by anthropologists. Many studies have focused on the evolving patterns of marriage across societies and the individual transformations that follow. Notably, the interactivity between state and personhood is carefully examined through the looking glass of changing marriage patterns (Friedman 2005; Yan 1997, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006; Zhang 2000). Scholars have been identifying the myriad drivers of these changes and contesting the state’s identity as the overarching dictator that overrules all activities in societies (Abrams 1998). Rather than interpreting state power in the strictly Gramscian tradition of hegemony that enforce disciplines through class coercions (Gramsci 1971), the Foucauldian interpretation of decentralized power relationships among social subjects transforms “governmentality” to be multi-directional (Foucault 1991), opens up more perspectives to understand social changes.
China, having gone through substantial economic growth and infrastructural development in the last century, undoubtedly presents a social context worth examining. Since China’s 1978 land reforms and de-collectivization in 1983, the socioeconomic conditions have changed drastically for the people living in the northern rural villages. The changes in state policies yielded adjustments in the labour conditions and the cultural habitus, introduced the swallowing force of modernity to the people, and transformed the marriage system in unexpected ways. In this essay, I will survey the significant changes in the economic and cultural aspects of marriage during modernization in the rural north and provide analyses to deconstruct the social and political factors behind it. Women’s positions will be highlighted. I aim to address the interplay between the state and the individuals that collectively impacted the dynamics of marriage.
Bridewealth Distribution in Changing Contexts
The post-reform years witnessed changes in many aspects of marriage. As the natal form of the market economy slowly takes place after the reform, unions joined by marriages are inevitably more financially conscious, especially when economic exchanges have always been a core element in marital ties. When negotiating the exchanges of bridewealth and dowry, the two families familiarize each other with the potential materiality of the future alliance, deliver messages related to social statuses, and create spaces to establish emotional bonds.
In Zhang’s ethnographic field research in a northern village in Hebei province in the 1990s, he noted an increase in marriage expenses for the grooms’ families, including property for the prospective couple, the bridewealth, and the costs to host a marriage ceremony. In the ten years between the 1980s and the 1990s, bridewealth increased by a multiplier of 7 (2000, pp.62-64). Zhang then attributed this increase to the shift in control from the brides’ families to the daughters themselves. Post-reform economy introduced market labour outside the family fields, such as in local factories. Financial autonomy granted women more bargaining power in the traditional arrangement of bridewealth distribution, where the majority is spent on their brothers’ marriages (2000, pp.64-65). Young people in the post-reform era encountered a changing economy that disadvantaged their financial future by ridding the hope for land entitlements from the state but were also gifted with a bourgeoning market that demanded fresh labour power. Young women were freed from the only and mostly unpaid occupation of being a family farmer and released into a modern sphere with financial independence. These broader contexts created material conditions to allow potential adjustments in bridewealth traditions, and the young women drew on these chances to institute these changes. It is a collective effort between the state and the individual that inaugurated alterations to bridewealth traditions.
In In Yan’s field research of the 1990s conducted in the northeastern Xiajia village, he discovered a similar trend where a rise of bridewealth benefitted the bride more than the families. In this village, women began to engage in the bridewealth negotiations more actively and boldly, sometimes demanding lavish and novel items to be added, such as a factory owned by the groom’s family. Yan observed the use of bridewealth gearing toward contributions to the conjugal family and furthering away from benefitting the brides’ parents and brothers (2005, pp.642-643). This need for capital escalated as the traditional extended family structures deteriorated when more and more young couples established conjugal residences to replace patrilocal residences (Yan 1997). Ideology-wise, in addition to the political campaigns initiated in the 60s and 70s and the marriage law that dismantled the traditional emphasis on ancestor worship and parental authority, Yan also noticed a growing sense of individuality that betrayed patriarchal orders and promoted egalitarian notions in family contributions. Therefore, the brides were more vocal to request their share of the family income in bridewealth, which was to be used for their own future home with the groom (2005, pp.643-645).
In this case, other than the economic contexts, social contexts perpetuated changes in marriage customs. The influx of urban culture and the western philosophy of individualism installed increasing awareness of self-worth and rights to ownership. However, these ideologies were localized to actualize personal interests. Bridewealth entitlements were being requested as an obligation of the parents but signified the youth’s independence. This interpretation camouflaged the unsheathing nature of daringly extracting financial resources from parents, contradicting equality’s connotation of balance between responsibilities and rights, making it a case for subverted use of power against the social offerings. In the end, the local exegesis and appropriations of the fluctuating ideologies converged inter-generational gaps to land on new arrangements of bridewealth.
Intimacy under Modernity
The modern conception of intimacy is usually identified as solid connections between two people based on mutual appreciation (Benjamin 1988). For intimacy to function in a social relationship, acknowledgment from the community and the larger milieu is also required (Friedman 2005, p.313), generating reciprocity between the social determinants and the people. A case in point would be how China’s modernization after the collapse of the collective economy reshaped the socialist subjects in rural north villages to identify new meanings and practices of intimate relationships. In addition to the purpose of reproduction, the preservation of patriarchal lineages, and the forming of economic ties to strengthen the labour capacity for competitive agriculture, conjugal unions were given new ideals by the state. These ideals encapsulated the modern requirements of marriage stipulated by Giddens, which include emotional intimacy, sexual desires, and romantic love (1990). In short, the market reforms of the post-Mao era fostered a relatively more open social ground that intensified the need for affective ties in marriage, both physically and emotionally.
In Yan’s research in Xiajia, he not only examined the economic structures and political transitioning but also explored the “moral experiences of individuals, whose concerns about privacy, intimacy, emotionality, and individual rights are as important as economic gains” (2003, xii). Following this thought, Yan noted youth’s exposure to the ideas of conjugal intimacy and romantic love led to market liberalizations, as they became opposed to arranged marriages and engaged more frequently in pre-marital sex. These exposures were made possible with the mobility and privatization of space. Young people migrated more often to the cities to seek employment. The urban spaces influenced their aspirations through universal mass media that boast modern middle-class lifestyles. Moreover, the city environment projected prejudices onto the village migrators that evoked senses of loneliness and guided them to seek consolation in the opposite sex (2002, pp. 36-37). Moreover, as public spaces devolved in the post-collective years, young people began to seek socialization in private terrains. Over time, it became a common dating practice for couples to stay for several days in each other’s family residence, contextualizing a social agreement that made pre-marital sex an unspoken truth (2002, p. 48).
With these external channels that allowed transcendence over the historical uses of spaces, Xiajia youth were trail-blazing relationship practices undone by their older generations. The community environment that granted intimacy with validity was also inculcated by the changing behaviors of the youth. Mass media saturation of urban and western ideologies effected changes in daily discourses in terms of relived taboos on sexual intimacy and valorized vocabularies in courtships and emotional expressions, eventually changing standards of spousal selection where women sought spouses more affectionate, affluent, and more attractive in emotional expressivity and appearance. The modernist discipline postulated by Foucault now incubated contemporary individuals through performances of behavior patterns, language uses and thought processes that revolved around economic openness and socialist ideals of conjugal relationships. Nevertheless, instead of concluding that modernity gave birth to intimacy, it is more constructive to consider the modern framework of intimacy to have arisen within the hybrid of state policies and individual responses. As Hart concluded in a similar situation of changing intimacy in a Turkey village, modernity is better interpreted as an “imaginative process” that returns agencies to individuals in creating their social practices instead of “a series of steps” that are strictly followed (2007, pp.359-360). By relying solely on the modern disciplines and excluding the Xiajia youth’s active and continuous effort in the external exploration of spaces and the internal investigations of the self, modern intimacy would not have mounted to its current form.
Women’s Empowerment and its Limitations
In previous sections, women in the contemporary Chinses villages were evidently empowered in the post-reform climate, enjoying the surge of autonomies in mate choices, higher shares of bridewealth, and outward expressions of love and intimacy. Yan noted a series of incremental developments that initiated the young women to spark on the road to empowerment (2006). To inspect the change in marriage relationships more well-roundly, it is worth examining the evolving gender scripts of women in these relationships.
According to Yan’s study in Xiajia, the collective farming years since the 1950s incorporated women as an integral part of the labour force. It is especially the case for unmarried young women who constitute vital energy for agricultural production. In some families, women were significant breadwinners instead of men. The collective years also provided formal education opportunities for young women, who started participating more actively in the public sphere, joining political organizations such as the Women’s Association. The post-reform years saw a significant shrinking of the public arena and disrupted women’s participation in public activities. However, the open market encouraged them to migrate to cities for employment, urbanizing cultural tastes in courtship and marriage (2006, pp.115-118).
Young women took advantage of opportunities to enrich their public and private life with education, financial independence, and self-directed marriages. However, Yan pointed out that the empowerment of young women mainly challenged the patriarchal power of the in-laws. They rarely challenged parents in matters other than mate-choice back in natal homes (2006, p.120). Zhang also contended that young women who pursue free-choice marriage risk losing financial assistance from their natal families (2000, p.66), especially when few had access to capital in the early 1980s. These changes in bridewealth challenged the images of virtuous daughters-in-law and nurtured women to be against cross-family patriarchies. Still, many of them had strong support from their partners during the bridewealth negotiations. Moreover, married life in the conjugal home gradually subjected them to the emerging roles of mothers and mothers-in-law that benefit from preservations of existing family values instead of opposition to them.
Overall, throughout China’s political and social campaigns, women were active players in painting alternative pictures of marriage. Nevertheless, the discourse of “girl power” is narrow in understanding their local circumstances. In any given stage of marriage reforms, neither were they fully empowered nor entirely suppressed. The only constant element was their surviving agencies to alternate and select the best options available.
Conclusion
Marriage begins as a social policy, but it materializes through human involvement. In reality, it forms a magnetic field with leveling forces of both the state and the individuals. In the last century, China instigated rapid developments in economic and social conditions for the rural villages. People endured the changes and innovated tactical strategies to situate marriage in their best interests. Whether it is the transformations of bridewealth or the changing knowledge of intimacy, youth in the rural north were creative contenders for their marital future. Through women’s journey to empowerment, it is also clear that individual autonomies remain a changing force, displaying different shapes when positioned in various backdrops. In summary, understanding marriage changes takes a composite view to evaluate all participants in their mobile nature, meaning dynamically assessing state-level developments and the alternating trajectories of individual decisions.
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