Is Romantic Love the Most Important Condition for Marriage？

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Choosing a Spouse

If you are young and unmarried, you must have in your mind the image of an ideal husband or wife. Most young people like to indulge in fantasies, and your image may ta.ke the form of a certain famous film star or pop singer. But if you are of a practical turn of mind； your “ideal” would be more down to earth, and your “image” would be modelled after what you see around you. Though images do not always coincide with realities （for after all, an ideal is an ideal）, it is nevertheless an interesting subject for study, for it tells us what the young people expect from the present society. Dr. Li Yinhe of the Sociological Institute of Beijing University has made a study of a certain amount of matrimonial advertisements, and he found that the present generation of China put great emphasis on, in order of importance, （1） age, （2） height, （3） education as the three most important standards in choosing a spouse. Next comes （4） character and temperament, （5） profession, （6） marital status and personal history, （7） appearance and （8） health.

Such order of emphasis is peculiarly Chinese. Other conditions such as religion, race and love, so important to people of other nations are completely missing in Dr. Li,s list. Many foreign scholars are also interested in the Chinese idea of an ideal spouse and they just can't understand why the Chinese men especially set so much store by “age” when they choose a spouse. A man of over forty would want a woman under thirty and a man of thirty would want his future spouse to be under twenty- five. One possible explanation is that youth is almost synonymous with beauty. At least the two words young and beautiful always go together. The Chinese people have not yet discovered mature beauty.

Height definitely is uniquely Chinese in playing such an important role when people choose a spouse. To be eligible a man has to be at least 1.70m. in height. It is said that to a choosy girl, any man under 1. 70m. is considered a semiinvalid！ So far no one has offered a satisfactory explanation to such a strange phenomenon.

As to the third important condition, that of educational level, people find it a puzzle too, because in present day China education doesn't give you high social status, nor does it bring you good pay. Yet both sexes set a great store by it. The thing to notice is that a man with a university education is content to have a wife with senior middle school education while a woman with a university education would never consider a man with only a senior middle school education： Her husband has to be at least a university graduate too, preferably someone with a post-graduate degree.

What conclusion can can we draw from all this？ I think that in seeking a husband or wife, we Chinese have not yet freed ourselves from our feudal tradition of arranged marriages. Instead of having our marriages arranged by our parents, we now arrange our own marriages.In the old days stress was put on equal social and economic status of the two families, which was considered a condition of a good match.

Now love marriages boil4down to more or less the same thing, except that stress is no longer placed on the condition of the two families, but on the two individuals themselves. And conditions vary with the trend of the times. Not so long ago it was Party membership that was all important. A girl who was a Party member would not be satisfied with a man who was only a League member. He had to be at least a Party member, and preferably a Party member with a responsible position. In essence we are still selling ourselves to the highest hidder. To put it another way： We are still trying to get the best bargain with what capitai we have. Is it so much different from the old mercenary marriage？

II. Read Read the following passages. Underline the important viewpoints while reading. 1. Husband and Wife by Arrangement. Yoshio and Hiromi Tanaka are a young Japanese couple living in the USA while he studies electrical engineering. They clearly love each other very deeply, but, says Yoshio, “We didn' t marry for love in the Western sense. We got married in the time-Itcanoured Japanese way. Our parents arranged our marriage through a matchmaker. ln Japan we believe that marriage is something that affects the whole family； not just tbe young couple concerned.

So we think it is very important to match people according to their social background, education and so on. Matchmakers are usually middle-aged women who keep lists of suitable young people with information about their families, education and interests. When our parents thought it was time for us to get married they went to a local matchmaker and asked her for some suggestions. We discussed the details.and looked at the photos sbe sent, and then our parents asked her to arrange a 'marriage interview, for the two of us.

A Japanese marriage interview is held in a public place, such as a hotel or restaurant, and is attended by the boy and the girl,their parents and the matchmaker. Information about the couple and their families is exchanged over a cup of tea or a meal. Then the boy and the girl are left alone for a short time to get to know each other. When they return home they have to tell the matchmaker whether they want to meet again or not. If both of them want another meeting, the matchmaker arranges it, and after that they can decide whether to carry on the coertship themselves. Here Hiromi said with a gentle sinile, “Not so long ago, the girl could never rcfuse to go out again with a boy who liked her, but now she can. I thought Yoshio was really rather nice, so I didn't refuse.”

Yoshio continued： “When our parents realized we were serious about each other, they started to make arrangements for our wedding. My family paid the `Yuino' money to Hiromi's. This is money o help. pay for the wedding ceremony and for setting up house afterwards. We also gave her family a beautiful ornament to put in the best room of their house, so everyone knew that Hiromi was going to marry. Six months after our first meeting we were married. A traditional Japanese wedding is a wonderful ceremony, and our traditional custom of arranged marriages has given me a wonderful wife.”

2. Husband and Wife by Airmail“You must be mad, ” his friends said, as thirty-year-old John Briggs of Hatfield left London Airport to fly to Brazil. John was going half-way round the world to meet a girl he'd never seen but hoped to marry. The trip was costing him three months' pay-in fact he' d had to borrow from his father and an aunt to buy his ticket-and he had no idea whether the pretty dark-haired girl he only knew from photographs and letters would even like him. “I' d had a good life as a bachelor,” says John, four years later, his arm round his wife and their two lovely children, “but I felt something was missing. I had a good job, my own house and plenty of friends.

I'd had plenty of girlfriends too, but somehow no one ever seemed quite the right girl for me. Then one day I was looking through a magazine during my lunch hour when a photograph of a pretty girl caught my eye. It was part of an advertisement for a World Penfriends Circle. I decided to write off to them immediately. All my friends had a good laugh, I remember.

John received the names of four girls, two. from Japan, one from Finland, and one from Brazil, and wrote to all of them, enclosing a photograph of himself, The last to reply was Maria from Brazil, but it was Maria who came to take first place in John's heart. They wrote to each other for a year, Maria in Portuguese and John in English- all the letters had to be translated-and then one of Maria's uncles came to Fngland on a business trip. Maria had asked him to arrange a meeting with John and report back to Brazil on what her English penfriend was really like. The uncle said that John was “a fat little fellow without much hair”, but he must. have said some nicer things too, for Maria's parents wrote to John inviting him to visit their family. John replied saying he'd love to.

A practical man, John started to get organized. As soon as he had the money for his air ticket he wrote to Maria asking her what her views on getting married were. He also sent an engagement ring, and a Valentine card every day！ Maria wrote back to say they could decide whether to get married or not once they met-but she started making a wedding dress of beautiful white silk, just in case……

The day John was due to arrive Maria waited anxiously at the airport. Suppose h？didn't like her？ But when his plane came in she didn't. even recognize himl Her uncle had to point him out. “He was the man with the nicest smiie, ” says Maria, “and he was just the right height for me！ ” They both realized immediately that they were just right for each other in lots of oth.cr ways too. Ten days later they were married and Maria came io live in England with her husband――“the best thing that's ever come to me through the post？she says.

3. Husband and Wife for ￡45 Eacb Attractive Kay Knight is expecting her first baby in a few months' time. She smiled happily at her husband Mike as she told us their story. “I woke up on my thirty-fifth birthday thinking, 'Help. I'm turning into a real old spinster schoolteacher. ' All my. friends seemed to be married with homes and families of their own. But where was I？ I love my job-don't get me wrong. I've had a very satisfying career, but teaching other people' s children isn' t the same as bringing up your own.”She'll make a wonderful mother,“ said Mike. ”I can't think why she wasn't snapped up years ago. But I'm glad she wasn't, or I wouldn't have found her.

How did they find each other？ “Well,” said Kay, “as a young woman I'd had a few boyfriends, but never anything serious. Then I realized I wasn't even meeting any men, not unmarried ones anyway. So I took a deep breat6 and wrote to a Marriage Bureau. ” Iiay ha d to fill in a detailed form and then attend an interview. “It was very thorough, ” she said. “They really wanted to make sure I was serious about wanting to get married, and they took a lot of trouble to find out what kind of person I was and the sort of man I thought I'd like to marry. I was told I'd be given three introductions to suitable men for a fee of ￡15. If I married one of them, I'd have to pay another ￡30. The first introduction was to another teacher, which she didn't think was a good idea, but the second was to Mike.

Mike took up the story. “I got married when I was a young man of 22, but my wife was killed a year later in a car accident. I was completely shattered. I put all my energies into m.y work and spent many years abroad with my firm. Then I came back to England. to work at Head Office and realized how empty my life had become. 1 didn't just want to work； I wanted a wife and children. I needed someone to make my house into a home. I wasn't interested in young girls, but how cowld I find a mature, loving woman to share my life？ I think my sister and brother-in-law must have g,uessed how I was feeling. They introduced me to a charming older couple one evening. After they'd. gone home I remarked how well-suited they seerned and my sister told me why――they'd met through a Marriage Bureau. `You should give it a try,' she said. So I did.”

Mike phoned a bureau the very next day and went for an interview the following week. He was given three names, including Kay's. He wrote to her first because he thought a school-teacher would probably like ch：ildren. Their first date was a disaster. “We agreed to meet for a picnic and it poured with rain, ” he told us. “But we both saw the funny side of it, and from then on everything went right.” Within'a month o# their first meeting he proposed and they got engaged. The wedding took place a year ago. “Speaking as a businessman, ” said Mike, “this is the best deal I've ever made！”