China’s Marriages No Longer Arranged

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 2

China’s Marriages No Longer Arranged

(XZP.A.-Reuter) PEKING. “Do you know each other?” asked the registrar at one of Peking’s marriage offices. The couple sitting in front of his plain wooden desk replied with a firm “yes.” The question was not as odd as it would seem to most Westerners.

Since the Communists have been in power, during the last 17 years, reforms have been introduced to abolish child betrothals and “feudal” marriages arranged by relatives or professional matchmakers.

For centuries, while these methods were regularly used, boy often did not meet girl until the betrothal ceremony or marriage. Now, both parties must agree to the match and present themselves to the registrar together. In the Peking city district office, the registrar was a neat and youthful-looking woman, dressed in the cotton jacket and baggy blue trousers worn by almost everyone in Peking. She asked the couple their ages, whether they knew the stipulations of the marriage law, and whether either of them had previously been married.

The bridegroom had been married before so the registrar questioned him about his divorce and how his children were being cared for. After each answer, she turned to the bride and asked, “Do you know this?” All this is part of the Communists’ drive to protect the

rights of women. The marriage law of 1950 guarantees equal rights for both sexes, the protection of the interests of women and children, and an end to the concubine system. I The Communists have made considerable efforts to uproot those traditional customs which gave women an ! inferior place in society, although they admit that this I has proved difficult in some I rural areas.

A couple reports to the district marriage office with a letter from their employers, or local residents’ association, certifying that they qualify for marriage and are in good health.

After asking a few questions, the registrar enters their names on a list and presents each of them with an identical certificate, with a red flag printed on it The certificate simply gives the names of the two people, declares that they are willing to marry each other and that they are married “in accordance with

the marriage law, after examination.”

The Peking east city district marriage office is in one of the capital’s picturesque and narrow old residential lanes. It is reached from a tidy courtyard dominated by a big board covered with slogans proclaiming Communist policies.

The office is a small groundfloor room, rather dark and dusty, with a desk, table and a few chairs. There are no flowers or any other festive decorations.

A colour print of Peking’s gate of Heavenly Peace, which has been adopted as the country’s official emblem, hangs above the desk. It is the only splash of colour in a room which looks in need of fresh paint and whitewash. After presenting the certificates, the registrar, and a woman clerk assisting, shook hands with the couple and the wedding was over. When they have received their certificates, Chinese couples usually mark the occasion with a small and simple party. Elaborate, costly receptions or lavish banquets have been officially frowned on for several years. In 1963, the Communists also held a campaign to end giving expensive wedding gifts and large dowries. The usual form of wedding reception nowadays consists of tea, cakes, biscuits, and fruit with a few friends, often in a sitting room at the place where the bride or bridegroom works. The preface of a booklet entitled, “Between Husbands and Wives,” issued by one of China’s state publishing houses, says: “In the socialist society the love between a husband and wife is based on the unanimity of their political thought and on the common task of struggling for our revolution.” It adds that a husband should treat his wife “with an attitude of revolutionary comradeship.” This means that he should consider her as "a fellow-fighter in politics, a class-sister working with him in production or other work, and a partner in family life.”