Publication: Marriage expenses in rural China
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2015-07-01
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The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
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Abstract
High marriage expenses in China’s rural areas have drawn considerable attention from the public, media, and academia. The objective of this article is to review recent literature on China’s rural marriage expenses and related issues. We first describe China’s rural marriage process, the high level of expenses including total expenses, expenses on housing, bride price, and expenses on marriage banquets involved. Afterwards we analyze speculatively the three causes of high marriage expenses: parental obligation, face-related competition in village culture, and imbalanced bargaining power due to the shortage of women. Next we introduce briefly the consequences of high expenditure on marriage. Then we investigate the three contentious issues related to high rural marriage expenses, namely: economic exploitation between families, between generations, and within generations; high marriage expenses and female social status, and the preference for sons. We conclude with issues for future research.
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Keywords
Marriage expenses, Bride price, Female shortage, Exploitation, Preference for sons, Face-related competition, Bargaining power
Bibliographic citation
Jiang, Q., Zhang, Y.& Sánchez-Barricarte, J.J. (2015). Marriage expenses in rural China. The China Review, 15 (1), pp. 207-236