Asian marriage in trouble
Asian marriage is in the news, with The Economist reporting on “the flight from marriage” in that part of the world and the London Telegraph noting the materialism which is delaying marriages in China.
As we saw last week, divorce is booming in China. But young urban women are also putting off marriage until they can find a man rich enough to already own a house, and preferably a car as well. Tying the knot without these things has become known as “naked marriage”. It’s a trend that seems to be partly driven by television shows. “I would choose a luxury house over a boyfriend that always makes me happy without hesitation,” said one 24-year-old on a very popular dating show.
Chinese authorities don’t like it — partly, no doubt, because of its demographic implications. The country that gave the world the one-child policy faces both a shortage of women (owing to sex-selective abortions) and an ageing tsunami; the childlessness that can result from delaying marriage indefinitely is not part of its grand plan.
Playing off the gold-diggers against the divorce trend, the Supreme Court has ruled that the person who buys the family home, or the parents who advance them the money, will get to keep it after divorce.
“Hopefully this will help educate younger people, especially younger women, to be more independent, and to think of marriage in the right way rather than worshipping money so much,” said Hu Jiachu, a lawyer in Hunan province.
Elsewhere in Asia, it seems, young urbanites are also delaying marriage: “The mean age of marriage in the richest places—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong—has risen sharply in the past few decades, to reach 29-30 for women and 31-33 for men,” notes The Economist. But that’s not all:
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