Font Size:
+-
Recently, the popular mainland TV series "Naked Wedding" evoked the media's open discussion of "the costs of marriage”. Maintaining the ideals of "love and romance" that first reached a high tide in the 80s, but now faced with high inflation and high housing costs, the number of people who want to get married but have no house, car, or savings (the so-called "3 no's people") is increasing.
As such, "Naked Wedding" is becoming quite popular, as the core concept of a "naked wedding" is a wedding where the couple have "no house, no car, no ring, no veil, no savings, no ceremony, no honeymoon"; it is simply a "frugal" direct marriage registration. The younger generation, who is preparing for their own "naked weddings", is generally 20-35 years old and avant-garde thinking. But there is no lack of highly educated, high-income urban white-collar workers who are also intrigued.
According to a recent online survey regarding "naked weddings", 60% of mainland youth are in favour, as they think "love should abandon wealth, and that true love is the most important thing."
See also: Money Honey: The Cost of Dating in China
These are the conditions under which many, if not most, young couples start out life together throughout the world.
Where the Chinese got the idea that all (quite young) people have to be financially secure BEFORE they get married is beyond me.
In the golden days of the '50s and '60s in the US, couples often had nothing when they got married, worked hard and supported each other, and raised large families. It was only many years later that they came to enjoy the benefits of their life's work.
Oh, and many, many of them were happy -- something you almost never hear discussed by Chinese people.
let the government provide some fund for the young people to get married
I am, so happy to read this article in an attempt to put Chinese girls back into perspective.
I have met 20 or 30 really wonderful Chinese girls who I would love to marry. But they keep saying you have to have a 1. Car, 2. House and 3. Credit card before we can marry. No mention of LOVE. I can talk until I am blue in the face to show they what they are thinking is disasterous to their future of getting married.
After all if by chance and stroke of good luck you find a man with all the prerequisits and get married. What is there left that you can do to build on your marriage when you have built the roof first. Especially when your in love with the material thing and don't have love. What is holding up this roof? Your marriage soon fails.
Maybe now some Chinese girls will start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and marry a man for love first and as the above said, Build your relationship from the ground up.
You have wanted to marry 20 or 30 girls???? Dude, that just aint healthy!
There still maybe hope for some true love in China, urah !!!
Frustrated Foreigner, how old were those 20 or 30 "wonderful" Chinese girls you met who you would love to marry? If they only want a house and car from you they are not wonderful.
Here is a tip: There are plenty of financially secure, pretty, well educated , divorced Chinese women in their thirties who want to marry Western men.
Do you care if your woman has a child or not? If so , then maybe you are too fussy, like Chinese men. I have met three women in the past two weeks ( very pretty ) who own ( outright ) their own apartments and cars. One 39, another 38, another one 41 years old. But these women have kids. However, I feel they really want to marry for the right reasons.
Check out some older ladies, you won't be dissapointed!
I ABSOLUTELY agree with this, and have done so myself. Many of the younger women still want to be and act like 'little princesses' with their baby voices. Tao yan.
Wow! So the 'naked wedding' best describes our marriage then! We got wed at the Shanghai Civil Registry. We paid 5 kuai for the cert, 40 for the photo (which is astoundingly has more value than the cert.) Then had hotpot after for 200 kuai. We don't have house nor a car, but just dreams. We got a cheap silver ring from a small store. I am southeast asian and my wife is Shanghainese. Guess I am kinda lucky, but as a man, I have to work harder. Marriage is not just all about money, not just all about love either, but sharing the same desires, dreams and pains. I guess Chinese women should be more open to this.
When I was young I had a very beautiful, nice and sexy american girlfriend. I really like her, but had a problem: took drugs. When I was sure I was the second in her priorities after the drugs, I decided to break up. Why? The relationship had no future.
This is the same. Most of Chinese girls (and women in the world) think without money the relationship has no future. If the woman has, then don't worry about. Marriage isn't love, marriage is a contract to share family goods and give safety!
Chinese women need to realize they can create their own stability and security, do not need a man to do that for them. Quite a few Chinese women are starting to think that way, but still a long way to go.
Young women around th eworld, and especially in the US gear marriage as their "entitlement". In their budding working careers, their money is spent on themselves and partying in some fashion; no saving p[lan or thought of saving and discipline.
That is what the man is for.
I disagree. They do not feel "entitled" to marry, or have a man provide for them. Many young women in the United States would like to marry eventually, but it is not their #1 priority.
Most choose instead to focus on careers, and education. Most women continue their careers after marriage. My mother was one of these. She did not rely on my father's income until after children came.
Men are expected to help provide for their children. Women expect them to provide for their children. Other men (and most of American society) also believe a man's responsibility is to care for his children, and his wife when her time is spent in the home with a baby instead at a job.
Having moved out of Shanghai, and into several other smaller cities, I see less materialism.
Most of the girls who are dating, including the cute ones, are dating boys they are really 'into'. Boys their own age.
I see lots of country girls who have moved into the big cities looking for a good, kind, honest young man.
Maybe part of this is because more girls are getting more independent financially. Maybe others just want to buck the negative stereotype.
For every spoiled brat who gets themselves noticed there are thousands of invisible people just getting on with their own lives. Yes we all want to be rich, but only a few will sell their integrity for it.
Don't get sucked in to believing stereotypes. Otherwise you are no better than the nationalist trolls who post.
Ad endum.
Perhaps some of the girls we see behaving badly are more typical of the girls who hang around trying to pick up foreigners.
BACK