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China Families and Marriage
Urban families differ from their rural counterparts primarily
in being composed largely of wage earners who look to their work
units for the housing, old-age security, and opportunities for a
better life that in the countryside are still the responsibility of
the family. With the exception of those employed in the recently
revived urban service sector (restaurants, tailoring, or repair
shops) who sometimes operate family businesses, urban families do
not combine family and enterprise in the manner of peasant
families. Urban families usually have multiple wage earners, but
children do not bring in extra income or wages as readily as in the
countryside. Urban families are generally smaller than their rural
counterparts, and, in a reversal of traditional patterns, it is the
highest level managers and cadres who have the smallest families.
Late marriages and one or two children are characteristic of urban
managerial and professional groups. As in the past, elite family
forms are being promoted as the model for everyone.
Three-generation families are not uncommon in cities, and a
healthy grandparent is probably the ideal solution to the childcare and housework problems of most families. About as many young
children are cared for by a grandparent as are enrolled in a workunit nursery or kindergarten, institutions that are far from
universal. Decisions on where a newly married couple is to live
often depend on the availability of housing. Couples most often
establish their own household, frequently move in with the
husband's parents, or, much less often, may move in with the wife's
parents. Both the state and the society expect children to look
after their aged parents. In addition, a retired worker from a
state enterprise will have a pension and often a relatively
desirable apartment as well. Under these circumstances elderly
people are assets to a family. Those urban families employing
unregistered maids from the countryside are most likely those
without healthy grandparents.
Families play less of a role in marriage choices in cities than
in the countryside, at least in part because the family itself is
not the unit promising long-term security and benefits to its
members. By the late 1970s, perhaps half of all urban marriages
were the result of introductions by workmates, relatives, or
parents. The marriage age in cities has been later than that in the
countryside, which reflects greater compliance with state rules and
guidelines as well as social and economic factors common to many
other countries. People in cities and those with secondary and
postsecondary education or professional jobs tend to marry later
than farmers. In China it is felt that marriage is appropriate only
for those who have jobs and thus are in a position to be full
members of society. Peasant youth, who have an automatic claim on
a share of the collective fields and the family house, qualify, but
college students or urban youths who are "waiting for assignment"
to a lifetime job do not. In any case, work-unit approval is
necessary for marriage.
Urban weddings are usually smaller and more subdued than their
rural counterparts, which reflects the diminished role of the
families in the process. More guests will be workmates or friends
of the bride and groom than distant kin or associates of the
parents. The wedding ceremony focuses on the bride and groom as a
couple rather than on their status as members of families.
Similarly, a brief honeymoon trip rather than a three-day
celebration in which the entire village plays a part is an
increasingly common practice. Long engagements are common in
cities, sometimes because the couple is waiting for housing to
become available.
Data as of July 1987
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