Research On Rural Marital Payment In Social Transformation

In the social transformation, dramatic changes have taken place in China. It reflects in all aspects of society, economy, and culture, as well as marital payment. As a mirror, marriage process is a reflection of people’s psychology and behavior affected by various social, economic and cultural factors which draws public attention and gets people thinking.The thesis chooses the author’s hometown as a case. Through field surveying and related theory research, this thesis studies the Chinese rural marital payments. Research about the vicissitude of the rural marital payment is carried on from the following four aspects:the foundational economical payment, the behavioral payment, the belief payment and tool payment.The whole text is divided into five parts. The first part is preamble, including research’s origin, meaning and framework of the research studies. Secondly, sort out the marital payment’s definition, classification. Thirdly, describe the reason of the selection of survey sites, natural and cultural environment, as well as traditional marriage customs in survey location. Fourthly, this part describes the survey methodology of this study.The second part introduces the changes of marital payment happened in the C village in social transformation. The research is carried on from the following four aspects:the foundational economical payment, the behavioral payment, the belief payment and the tool payment.The third part explains the changes in the social context of marriage payment. On the one hand, marital payment is affected by economic conditions. On the other hand, marital payment is influenced by social and cultural factors.The fourth part discusses the relationship between marital payment and participants in detail. For young women in rural areas, male marital payment becomes a tool to judge male’s ability of providing, combined with the deep symbolic meaning of it. The rural young men are very vulnerable when they want to choose an ideal mate. Emotional factors give way to economic factors. The bride’s parents are little pickier. And, bridegroom’s parents make it his mission to help their son to get married. Meanwhile, each participant of the marital payment faces different situation. Their behavior have a profound impact on marital payment. The rural young women demand a lot, which brings young men pressure. The bride’s parents and the bridegroom’s parents are in competition with each other. The son generation conspire to get more marital payment, for the benefit of their new family.The fifth part proposes the fundamental conclusion of this text, and discusses how to solve the problem of marital payment in rural area.