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Is it Better to Cry in a BMW or to Laugh on a Bicycle? Marriage, ‘financial performance anxiety’, and the production of class in Nanjing (People's Republic of China)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2016

ROBERTA ZAVORETTI
ROBERTA ZAVORETTI*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany Email: Zavoretti@eth.mpg.de
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Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic data collected in the city of Nanjing, China, the article analyses discursive practices of courtship and marriage in the context of post-Mao and post-Deng economic, social, and legal developments. Informants’ discussions often revolve around the tension between the idea that marriage should be about love and the increasing material demands that prospective grooms face upon marriage in a market-led consumer society. This tension also emerges in media debates on the hedonistic attitude of Ma Nuo, a contestant on the matchmaking programme Feicheng Wurao (If you are the one). Informants, on the other hand, articulate their feelings in terms of family responsibility and pursue marriages that, while based on choice, may also ensure financial stability and parental approval.

Type
Anxieties
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4: Love, Marriage, and Intimate Citizenship in Contemporary China and India , July 2016 , pp. 1190 - 1219
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of Modern Asian Studies, as well as Li Zhang for their detailed comments on an earlier version of this article. Many thanks to Henrike Donner and Gonçalo Santos for their valuable support and editorial work.

References

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37 Evans, Women and sexuality, pp. 82–83, 104–111.

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39 Evans, Women and sexuality; Jankowiak, William R. 1993. Sex, death, and hierarchy in a Chinese city: an anthropological account. New York: Columbia University PressGoogle Scholar; Yan, ‘The individualization of the family’.

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42 Rofel, Other modernities, pp. 219–220.

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44 Evans, ‘Fashion and feminine consumption’, p. 176.

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46 The 2011 amendment changed provisions for the handling of property in case of divorce. According to the amended law, housing bought by either spouse (or their families) before the marriage may stay with the original owner in case of divorce. Before the amendment, housing bought by either spouse or the parents before marriage became common property of the two spouses upon marriage, and had to be equally divided in case of divorce.

47 Evans, Women and sexuality, p. 86.

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78 Yan, ‘The individualization of the family’, p. 223.

79 Rofel, Other modernities.

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82 Rofel, ‘From sacrifice to desire’.

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