Intergenerational Conflict In The "Single Wave":How Urban Late Married Youths Communicate Love And Marriage With Their Parents In China

The role of marriage is very important in China.Parents are inevitably involved in the process of mate selection and marriage of children.With the development of industrialization and modernization,more urban youths spontaneously delay marriage due to personal development,which runs counter to the traditional concept of their parents.Intergenerational conflicts are common while few have been studied.Through in-depth interviews with 16 urban late married youths,using the grounded theory to deal with data,we depict the parent-child marriage communication pattern in China.The study found that the collective effect of generation gap and family obligation has created a conflict situation.In the context of conflict,the topic is often mentioned in a specific time and space and its frequency is adjusted by internal and external factors of the family.The conversation is cyclically carried out under the conditions of "non-conflict" and "conflict".The communicator,communication medium,communication strategy and communication content under the two conditions are different.Boundary permeability is adjusted in the conflict cycle.When the boundary penetration is expanded,adjustment of communication strategies and deep communication are conducive to the resolution of conflicts;when the permeability of the boundary remains unchanged or tightened,the conflicts exist,and the communication is in an "infinite loop" state.In the end,the choice of children's marriage and love and parent-child relationship are adjusted during the communication.Finally,we discuss the research results and proposes that the parent-child marriage communication should be from "breaking"to"standing",which means breaking the"infinite loop"state of"avoiding conflicts",treating conflict as an opportunity for change and trying"constructive transformation of conflicts."...