On Her Own? Unmarried Motherhood And Renegotiation Of Gender Roles

Single motherhood refers to the childbearing behavior of a woman who is legally single outside of marriage,and it can also imply the unmarried motherhood,which is one of the obvious phenomena of the second demographic transition.Existing Chinese studies on the second demographic transition mainly focus on the first marriage age,cohabitation rate,divorce rate,unmarried fertility rate,lacking empirical research,especially for unmarried motherhood.As for gender relations/roles studies,they are still highlighting the path from intimate relationship to marriage to reproduction,and less attention is paid to the different motherhood variants.In the context of multiple background of the transformation of social politics,economy,population structure,this paper focuses on the single motherhood practice of some urban women with certain economic strength.Through exploring the picture of single motherhood practice in China and the logic behind it,this paper also tries to take unmarried mothers as a prism to further present the changes of gender relations in the process of social transformation in China.This paper shows that the practice of single motherhood in the Chinese context reflects anegotiation and integration of tradition and modernity.With the increase in women’s education and participation in the labor market,marriage is no longer the only way for them to obtain economic support,but has become just one of their life paths.Women who embraced marriage expectations of romantic love or equal and respectful relationship have feeling the rising risk of marriage and the multiple obligations of traditional marriage.Under such collisions and conflicts,they may give up the live path of entering marriage and the sequential identity obligations of wife or daughter-in-law attached to marriage,and only accept the identity of mother,which may promote the practice of single motherhood.Becoming a mother need a complicated decision-making process,they have to take into account the self-procreation motivation,the desire for close emotional connection,and seeing procreation as an important part of self-growth and self-actualization.And they need to carefully consider from their physical functions,economic abilities,emotional responsibilities and other aspects of the assessments of whether they have the ability to assume the motherhood,then finally make the decision of childbirth without marriage.Under the social background of the lack of fertility security and the close intergenerational connection,intergenerational interaction tends to participate the whole process of the decision and practice of childbirth without marriage.The care and support of the maternal family makes it possible for women to have child（ren）without marriage,which becomes the main way of raising and caring child（ren）in this situation,and further promotes the reemphasizing of the identity of daughter for unmarried mothers.In addition,these unmarried mothers also try to coordinate their own social resources to explore various child-rearing arrangements,including the cooperative family based on market service,the partner cooperative family,and the mutual assistance and cooperation among unmarried mothers and other women.Therefore,the abovementioned practice of single motherhood has breaking through the traditional paternal family parenting mode to some extent,and has forming a female-centered family pattern with the mother’s surname and the mother’s residence.However,from another perspective,these unmarried daughters also need to undertake the responsibilities that belong to men（sons）amid patriarchal culture,such as supporting the aged and carrying on the family line,which then fuzzing up the relationship between female subjectivity and patriarchy.As such,the wording “on her own?” has three implications in this paper: whether women undertake the responsibility of single parenting at the practical level;whether the domestic dominance of women at the cultural level is the continuation of patriarchal culture;whether unmarried women can be guaranteed and supported by the institutional system.These three questions can correspond to the current complex social reality,and the simple binary structure cannot provide convincing answers.Therefore,this paper attempts to demonstrate the complexity behind the single motherhood,and aim to trigger more thinking about women’s lifestyle choice.