Marriage Gender and Sex in a Contemporary Chinese Village

This book explores changing concepts of marriage and gender relationships and attitudes toward sex in a rural Chinese community over the past five decades. The book is based on a study of an industrialized peasant village in Guangdong Province from 1994 to 1996 and subsequent visits from 2000 to 2002. According to the authors, the rural economic reforms of the 1980s in southern China have challenged and reinforced the deep structure of Chinese familism and this has lead to tensions between tradition and modernity. The first section of the book explores how attitudes toward marriage and courtship have changed over the past fifty years through personal accounts of three different marriages from different generations. In Part II, the transition from a traditional to a modern society is discussed from the perspective of several women from different generations. The third section focuses on sexual relationships and the growing sex trade in the village. Part IV includes updates to the original survey and takes a look at village politics. Chapter 1 Theoretical Framework; Chapter 2 Baixiu Village; Part 1 Finding a Partner, Love, and Marriage; Chapter 3 Marriage, Familism, and Autonomy; Chapter 4 The Story of Uncle Qiu; Chapter 5 The Story of Zhichao; Chapter 6 The Story of Wang Qiming; Part 2 Tradition, Women, and the Interpretation of the Self; Chapter 7 Women in Chinese Villages; Chapter 8 Wang Guizhen; Chapter 9 “A Female’s Need for Fulfillment” in the Eyes of Traditional Women; Part 3 Sex and the Sex Trade Under the Reform and Opening-Up Policy; Chapter 10 Familial Culture, Gender Relationships, and Sexual Indulgence; Chapter 11 Sex, the Sex Trade, and Extramarital Relationships in the Eyes of Men; Chapter 12 Wealth, Materialization, and the Feminine Viewpoint; Chapter 13 The Paradox of in Baixiu Development Village; Chapter 14 Reflections on Methodology; Part 4 Epilogue: Baixiu Village at the Turn of the Century; Chapter 15 Baixiu Village at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century; Chapter 16 Rural Political Reform;