Chinese BiHun, the OverworryingParents and the ConfusedChildren

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文/ 李丹 律师

During 2014’s Spring Festival, an advertisement launched by baihe.com, a match-making website caused hot debate among the society and some netizens even started a boycott against Bai He by thousands of people. 

This advertisement is about a girl chooses to marry a boy whom she found through Bai He, the match making website, to satisfy her grandmother’s final wish, which as to Bai He, is a true story. To lots of girls and boys who have reached marriage age but still stay single, this advertisement, using family love to force them to get married, is a moral blackmail in a real sense. From then on, a war is openly declared between the pushing parents and the unwilling children.

In 2015 on February 14th, several girls claiming themselves alliance of leftover girls walked in downtown Shanghai, holding signs against being forced to marriage, “Mum, do not force me to get married during the new year, “my happiness, my decision” and etc. 

Strategies against being force to marry can be easily found from wechat, blogs and websites. To those who reach marriage age but stay single with no boy friend or girl friend, spring festival, which is supposed to be a happy family union time, is changed into a time for endless blind dates arranged by parents and warm hearted relatives or friends of parents, a time with endless questions from close and distant relatives about when you will get married, a time you want to run away from the family as soon as possible. 

Spring festival, a supposed to be a happy family union holiday is changed into a Bi Hun disaster to lot of young persons who reach the age appropriate for marriage but remain single, Chinese Bi Hun is much fierce than the tiger.

In 2016, a group of young persons self paid an advertisement extolling singlehood at Dong Zhimen Subway station to fight against Bi Hun. A report about the real situation of Chinese Bi Hun is launched nationwide which says more than 70% of the interviewees were forced to get married by the parents. Young persons between the age of 25 to 35 suffer the biggest pressure of Bi Hun, 86% of whom are Bi Huned. Compared to men, women has 6% higher rate of being Bi Huned and even 3% of the young persons interviewed are Bi Huned by the parents without reaching the legal age for marriage.

(from http://www.cnrencai.com/diaochabaogao/325869.html)

 In 2017, a research report about Chinese men’s and women’s view of marriage and love launched between 2016 and 2017 by Jiayuan.com, another on line dating website shows that 56% of the men interviewed are forced to get married by their parent last year compared to 50% of the women interviewed.

(from http://mt.sohu.com/20170110/n478335619.shtml)

Bi Hun, forcing to get married,is not a rare case around the world, but only the Chinese parents have made it a life priority especially to those who got married early, gave birth to child early and retire early. It is understandable that they have their own pressure from their parents, their relatives and friends of the same age who have the grandchildren already. 

To those parents, marriage is still considered as a must and to get married at marriageable time is normal. To those parents, the Chinese tradition, to have grandchildren around is still considered to be a major happiness in their life. To those parents, they believe the child is all they have and to marry their baby girl or boy well becomes their first and sometimes only goal in their life.

The pressure they have and the expectation they hold work together to force their child to get married when the child reaches the appropriate marriage age. They are becoming the over worrying parents as their life goal is to make their parents happy and to raise the child  well, they have no self value but the value to follow the others. However, their child’s marriage is a choice of their child’s own, not theirs and Bi Hun is the only way available for the over worrying parents to push their children to follow what they believe.

On the other hand, under pressure from the over worrying parents to get married, the child generation gets totally confused: they want to fulfill their parents’ wish which they believe is for their own good but they do not want to get married for marriage’s sake. 

They do not want to live a marriagable life like their parents with stability but low quality but they get hesitated before the yearly ever increasing divorce rate especially among the younger generations. They want to get married but they have no idea how to find Mr or Ms right for their over worrying parents definitely do not have too much exeperience to teach. They believe what their parents believe that life without marriage is imperfect but they have no idea how to live a marriage life: they are far from well prepared for the coming marriage, the responsibility marriage brings about, potential conflicts between the two couples and two families and etc. They have too much pressure from their over worrying parents but too little experience about how to have a good marriage. They are totally confused, a life without marriage is imperfect and a marriage life ends up with divorce is not perfect, either. 

I strongly oppose the parents’ forcing their child to get married against the child’s will. Yes, marriage does involve two families. Yes, marriage needs a good match which the parents must keep close eye on. But marriage is a willing choice made by their own child first instead of a task assigned by the parents that the child has to fulfill, to marry for marriage’s sake is unacceptable.

From the post 80s divorce cases I have handled, lack of understanding is the main killer to their marriage. I checked with some of our clients and their parents why to get married since the son in law or daughter in law is such an unlovable one. 

The answers are almost the same, I am no longer younger and I do not have too many choices. Since my parents are so worried I do not get married at such a late age, pick up some one who seems appropriate and get married. The parents’ are since our child is no longer younger, to find someone to get married is not easy. Just get married or we may never have opportunity to hold our baby grandchild. Being forced to get married, rush to get married, the marriage seems to be doomed a failure.

More often than not, parents who are forcing their children to get married will try every effort, utilizing every relation they have, catching every chance of promoting their children, arranging the blind date for their children whenever possible even against their child’s own will. Furthermore, the qualifications the parents set for their future son in law or daughter in law, look, education, economic conditions but never the personality or upbringing or character, anything that is really important for marriage. 

A perfect marriage in those parents’ eye ends up a total failure when the son in law born of a good family turns out to be a extremely person who cares nobody but only himself, the daughter in law with master degree is a lazy bone and a pampered prince or a good look son in law turns out to be a love rat at all. 

Marriage, after all, is not a wishful thinking of the parents but a willing choice of the child’s own. 

Yes, parents need to take a close look at the partner the child chooses to spend the rest of life with but only as a bystander not a party involved. Yes, it is natural to get married at a right age but only when the child finds the right one. Yes, the elder the child be, the more difficult for him or her to find the right one as the choice is decreasing when the age is increasing. 

But the increasing age will make the child wiser in choosing the life partner. Yes, your baby child is too naïve to choose the right one but your choice does not necessarily mean the right one for your baby child. So trust your own child and stop overworrying. Stay single, remain wise is a good choice if there is no appropriate one for marriage.

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