Chinese "Blind Date" In Villages

Mate selection is a long-standing popularity of the subject in the field of family sociology. People always have strong interest that who will marry whom and hope to find a reasonable answer. However, from ancient times and from East to West, mate selection is not simply about people's individual emotions, but involves various factors based on certain historical conditions and social environments. In today's society, although marriage which is based on love has gained widely recognition, yet in the vast rural areas, marriage obvious has local regional characteristic which is subject to the narrow range of communications, slow accumulation of wealth, poor agricultural productions and some others, therefore, the words of matchmaker's and ideas of matched for marriage are still in dominant.Village is the basic unit of rural society, and is the place where traditional customs and way of life preserved most. With twenty years economic liberalization, political change and culture collision, people's way of life, behavior and values have changed more or less in the village. The contemporary village is multiple coexistences of modern and tradition, reform and compliance, open and fettered. This paper mainly studies changes of people's ideas in mate selection, especially studies in which way people choose their partners at present.Mate selection model is a way both men and women to choose their spouse. According to different criteria, mate selection model can be divided into various types. Based on whether a third party involves in the process of mate selection, this paper divided mate selection into two types:free love and guided mate selection. Obviously, by definition free love means men and women establish love relationships according to their wishes without intervention of a third party. Guided mate selection means parents also join to choose their child's partner with guidance of a third party. In the village, people call this model "blind date". S village in Jilin Province is a typical traditional village, which mainly depend on agriculture production. The author finds that people inclined to choose "blind date" to search their partners because the limited communication, less social mobility and simple way of life. In other words, the guided mate selection is still in dominant in their lives. An accustomed mate selection behavior gradually formed in their lives and has passed on and on.This paper attempts to use Field Theory and Habitus Theory to explain people's mate selection behavior in the vast villages. In their specific field, and influenced by their habitus through long-term practice, the village people formed a suitable mate selection model. With social development, people think rationally to the influences of mate selection behavior according to this model, they choose to give up, follow or improve this model. In the whole process of "blind date", four people participate in total. Through the analysis of each other's effect in the whole process of mate selection, the author finds that, not only the people who search partner involves, but also the matchmaker who is the guider for both partners meeting, parents who is the filter in selection of their children's partners, relatives and neighbors are the advisors who providing reasonable views. In such way, the marriageable children only perform the discretion which is limited.In the conclusion and discussion sections, first, the author roughly displays the specific behavior under the guided mate selection model in Chinese villages, then the author analyzes the influence factors and future development trends of guided mate selection model, and finally, the author does in-depth reflection to the whole study.