Conceptions Of Love And Pre-Marital Relationships Of Shanghai Young People

People fall in love, date, enter into a relationship and get married all around the world. A loving relationship is central to all human experiences and functions as a thread which links all stages of life together. Love, as both an indispensable part to one's private life and as a cultural phenomenon, has been extensively studied abroad by scholars in the field of psychology and sociology since the 1980s. But it is still rather new to the academic sphere in China.This research is a first attempt to conduct research about love and relationships among Chinese young people, and has produced some interesting findings. For the purpose of obtaining detailed information of each respondent, qualitative interviews were chosen for the Chinese part. Altogether, 25 informants ranging from the age of 20 to 28 who were currently or previously involved in a heterosexual relationship were recruited to take the interviews. The rationale of employing this methodology is discussed in the second chapter. To provide a panoramic picture of how Chinese people go about a dating relationship, the third chapter is presented in a generalized issue-focused format from one stage of the relationship to another to discuss new features characterizing their views and practices.America, as one of the earliest nations engaged in the study of love, has produced abundant theories in this aspect. Additionally, due to the pervasive influence of American culture on the globe, I conducted a literature review of general conceptions of love and relationship held by the American young people to highlight the new trends found among Chinese young people. The findings are discussed in chapter four.How people think of love may reflect a rich cultural tradition and bear the mark of its times as well. As a result of rapid economic development in China and western influence, Chinese traditional values have witnessed changes in all ways. So this thesis ends with discussions of how the Chinese young people vary among themselves as a reflection of the features of the times and how they differ from their peers in America due to their different cultural traditions.Through this qualitative research, I mean to suggest that studying loving relationship is not only an effective way of learning and understanding culture but a good cutting point for comparative studies of cultures. Some limitations of this research are discussed at the end of the paper as well.