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Why does “love” finally win in China today? The ideal realm of “home” based on marriage has also undergone great changes. The two economic functions of “home” are rapidly being replaced by the market, and the emotional function of marriage and “home” is rapidly increasing.

Today, we talk about the financial logic of traditional marriage and how “love” begins to triumph in China.

In the history of our country, there has been only marriage but no romantic love. It has only changed in recent decades. This topic reminds me of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who became the world’s richest man for more than $59 billion. When the news of his wife, Ms. Chen, was married in 2012, many people in China, regardless of men and women, suddenly wondered why the world’s richest man would fall in love with a person of ordinary value and marry her, and When he saw it in the year, did he really love her? In fact, in addition to Zuckerberg’s story, I have often heard friends talk about it: How do foreigners swear by Chinese wives without appreciation? The answer is still the lack of economy and finance: traditional Chinese society does not solve the problem of food and clothing on the one hand, and there is no financial market on the other. Therefore, the primary task of marriage is to help a young and old to solve the survival challenge, to avoid family members by family and children. Risk of illness and death.

That is, the marriage determines whether the system of “nurturing the elderly” is successful.

In-laws may be the second most reliable way for humans to establish inter-temporal trust, second only to blood. The two promise to be old-fashioned is a guarantee for a long period of time. This is also why, in the history of China, on the one hand, the rules of conduct and relationship structure around the family and the family have been developed very carefully, and on the other hand, the rules on marriage have been made very thorough. When marriage involves the interests of so many other people, it is impossible to be just a matter of young men and women themselves, but must be completely arranged by parents, and the elders have full control. In this way, the blind decision makers are the parents of both parties, not the younger men and women, heOf course, we only use hard indicators such as looks, wealth, and portals to evaluate each other. The very personal factors like feelings and love have no effect. Because love is valuable to both parties, it may not be important to other family members.

Xu Lixin and other scholars’ research also shows that: free love marriage is more harmonious, husband and wife relationship is good, but the wife may not respect the parents, the family income also sacrifices a little, and the husband-wife relationship brought by the parents arranged marriage is not necessarily harmonious, but to the parents The benefits are: the wife is more obedient, has more children, is more filial to her parents, and cares for the elderly after her parents are older.

So, which model is better, it depends on who benefits. What do you think? Arranged marriage is an extension and guarantee of the system of “nurturing the elderly”. Otherwise, the inter-period trading arrangement based on “nurturing the elderly” will collapse! After the society has decided to marry with hard indicators for a long time, people only know the criteria such as face value, wealth, and status, so there will be no understanding of Zuckerberg today.

Where is love

You may not agree with what I said. To this end, we can look at a song that best represents the Chinese people’s love and marriage vision. In the Huangmei Opera “Tian Xian Fu”, “The husband and wife both return home” has always been regarded as the most romantic love song, but if you look at the lyrics carefully, you will find that this “marriage vision” is basically based on interests, love is less, very realistic. .

The most important vocal lyrics are like this: “You plow the fields to weave, I pick the water to you to pour the garden; the cold kiln is broken, it can withstand the wind; the husband and wife love, bitter and sweet.” Among them, “You I plow the fields and we weave, I pick the water to you to pour the garden.” What does this mean? It is said that the family consisting of marriage is first of all a “production unit”, which is a combination of different division of labor, in order to exert their own skills and abilities, so that the total output can be maximized and the best supply of life can be obtained.

So, the traditional home is first and foremost a production unit. Just like the cooperatives that originally planned the economy, in the “home” cooperative, the husband and wife have a division of labor. Secondly, “the cold kiln is broken, it can withstand the wind and rain.” Of course, this sentence can be understood literally, that is, to have a physical meaning of the home, the house, you can also see the essential meaning behind it, that is, “home” It is an intertemporal risk trading arrangement. “Cold Kiln” refers to the internal mutual assistance system based on the family. “Wind and rain” refers to the risk. Therefore, when you get married, you can help each other to deal with risks, which is difficult to share, including income risk. Health risks, old-age risks, natural disaster risks, etc.

In other words, “home”It is a system of interest exchange or risk trading. Again, it is “mother and wife love, bitterness and sweetness”. This is the emotional function of “home”, giving people the foundation of spiritual and emotional well-being. Therefore, Chinese traditional marriage and home Positioning, including three functions:

One is to form a “home” as a production unit through marriage;

The second is “home” as a system for sharing risks;

The third is marriage and “home” as a community of emotional communication.

In reality, until the last few decades, the first two functions of marriage, economic function, have always dominated, and the weight of love need not be said much, that is after the May Fourth Movement.

From “talking about family” to “falling in love”

I also searched the Chinese newspapers such as the “Declaration” of the late Qing Dynasty and found that the word “love” appeared only three or four times before the twentieth century, and that several times were “love” and “love”. The words are just together because of the content before and after, without any romantic meaning.

Before a historical scholar defended, “Is there a love story for the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl since the Han Dynasty?”, and the reason why the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl only meet each other seven or seven a year is because it is only a dream, there will be no such thing in the real world. luxury. Ancient China must have had many “love” stories for men and women, but “love” has never become the mainstream of society, but a luxury of a few people. Therefore, there has never been a romantic “love” in Chinese.

A scholar said that when I translated French romantic poems in the 1920s, I encountered a problem: Westerners use roses to express romantic love, but Chinese people don’t feel roses, how to translate “roses” in poetry and make Chinese readers The reaction to reading this word is the same as when Westerners read “Rose”? It’s hard to find because the “romantic” experience is too rare in traditional China, and there is no need to make it.

Many people say that marriage can also be loved. Yes, but there will be very few. The original custom is that the parents of both sides negotiated various terms through the matchmaker. After they were recognized, the young men and women could only see one side, and even before the day of the marriage, they could not see it! What is the difference between talking about business transactions and where there are opportunities for feelings? Therefore, our society is only familiar with hard indicators such as Yan value.

After more than a decade, Professor Yun Yunxiang from the University of California went to the northeastResearch, ask the local elderly people what they call the process before marriage, is it called “falling in love”? The locals replied, “We used to call the process ‘talking to the family’, and in the 1960s and 1970s we called ‘seeking the object’, and then later called ‘falling in love’.” Obviously, from “talking to the family” to “finding the object” “This is a big revolution, because the decision-making body has shifted from both parents to the young people, and the space and weight of feelings have improved a lot, but the purpose is too clear.” Later, I changed to “falling in love”, talking about love, and the purpose was weakened a lot. This is the “love” finally won, let “love” become the mainstream foundation of marriage and family. Although not all marriages can do this in reality, at least this is already the mainstream value orientation of society.

So, why is “love” finally triumphed in China today?

The ideal state of marriage-based “home” has also changed a lot. The two economic functions of “home” are rapidly being replaced by the market, and the emotional function of marriage and “home” is rapidly increasing. Strong>. Why is this so?