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Recently I attended the wedding of a 38-year-old friend who is a senior executive at a multinational company's Shanghai branch. For years, her parents had made it their goal in life to see her married.
Seven years ago, she had a Chinese boyfriend from a different company in the same industry, but he earned less than she and his career prospects were not as bright. They dated for two and a half years and they were in love. Her parents vigorously opposed the match. They considered it a disgrace for her to "marry down."
Most of her friends also tried to persuade her to end the relationship, convinced that it could not last. She and I became close, partly because I never made any suggestions to her about marriage and never suggested what kind of man she should marry - if she felt like marrying at all.
For a year the couple quarreled and the man finally broke it off. He said he couldn't stand the constant pressure, inquiries and jokes from both families' friends, acquaintances, and people they hardly knew.
A few days later, I chatted with the bride, and she admitted knowing about her husband's lifestyle and what he's really like. "I needed someone to marry. My parents, aunties and uncles are driving me crazy," she said.
Marrying a foreigner appears good to her family, since many people still believe the stereotype that foreigners in China are senior rich executives. It's harder for Chinese relatives and friends to dig out a foreigner's background and gossip about it.
Time has changed and Chinese women have changed, especially in big cities like Shanghai. Many are not ashamed of discussing their sex lives with friends. Fewer men (but still a lot) require that their wives be virgins. And some women get married at an age considered really old - above 30.
Many things have not changed, such as the notion that "a woman needs a family to be complete, no matter how successful her career or the rest of her life."
People and society at large expect women to become wives and mothers after they turn 25 and definitely after they turn 30, when they are supposed to live and work for the family, and the family alone. After they marry, especially after they have a child, many women seem trapped, indifferent to their own appearance, and already middle-aged. Because they were pushed to marry so early, they never really got to enjoy their twenties.
Even some very intelligent women, such as those mentioned in this article, find it difficult to endure the constant pressure, unless they avoid all family and friends.
Unfortunately, most Chinese families stay very close together and expect everyone to show up at regular gatherings of family members, when women are typically singled out, blamed and harshly criticized if they are still single. That backward mindset doesn't fit with a country that's enlightened in so many other ways.
