Research On The Residing Both Sides Marriage And The Gender Relations In The Family

In1980s, China began to practice the Family Planning Policy,Chinese traditional reproductive habits were limited. As time passed by, people’s concept of child-bearing has changed, they are accepting the idea of birth-control, following it consciously. The population transition completed in a short period of time in China’s rural area. Children become the scarce resources in the rural households.The traditional Espouse Marriage and the Uxorilocal Marriage can not resolve the conflict between the wish and reality, people are forced to looking for a new form of marriage, hoping to resolve the marital problems that the rural areas are confronting.Residing Both Sides Marriage in Y village is a new marriage form that inherit the historical and cultural. This new kind of marriage form is constantly expanding its influence.For marriage is the top priority involving the gender relations, the form of marriage determines the family’s gender relations. The traditional Espouse Marriage built a male-domination and female-attachment gender relations, because of the Espouse Marriage’s inherent marriage arrangements. Based on this, this study focuses on:how did the traditional Espouse Marriage maintain the male-domination and female-attachment gender relations? What is the marriage arrangements of the Residing Both Sides Marriage in Y village? How does it influence the gender relations? Will it make a more equal family gender relations?Through the in-depth investigation and study of the Espouse Marriage and the Residing Both Sides Marriage in Y village,the author thinks that the Residing Both Sides Marriage conforms to the development of economy and society, inherits the filial culture and the concept of procreation. At the mean time, it solves the current realism dilemma——the scarcity of old-age security and family heir which is caused by children scarcity. Therefore, the traditional ideas and the reality of the current Y Village both produce the Residing Both Sides Marriage in the Y village.After investigating the the cause of the Residing Both Sides Marriage, the author compared the Residing Both Sides Marriage to the Espouse Marriage, found that the Residing Both Sides Marriage taking the both-sides living arrangement, taking the female’s social relations into the family relations to maintain the social network, identifying the daughter’s legitimate right to inherit property, breaking the traditional identity of female in the family old-age security, protecting the female’s legitimacy as a pension resource provider. in the family. Moreover, in the distribution of family property, the female enjoys more autonomous right. On the other hand, social cognition and the female’s Self-consciousness have changed, affirming the value of female, changing the son-preference of the traditional family and producing a new concept that the female also can support the family, can inherit property, can support their parents as well as they have the ability to maintain a descent. Therefore, the Residing Both Sides Marriage in the Y Village constructed a more equal gender relations in the family by adopting a new marriage arrangement.