No country for older men: China’s better educated, well-paid women are opting for younger husbands
Traditional attitudes to marriage are changing fast and are levelling the marital playing field
When Zhu Xiuyun’s parents ordered her to end a relationship with the man she loved because of an unacceptable age gap she was devastated.
The year was 1985, and Zhu was 25 years old and living in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. At just two years younger, the man she wanted to marry could hardly be described as a toy boy, but in the social climate of the times he was far too young to make a suitable husband, and he had to go.
“In those days, if a man married an older woman, even if they were in love, he was seen as a loser,” Zhu said, adding that husbands were always expected to be better educated and older than their wives.
“It was considered really radical, even until as recently as the 2000s. I didn’t want my family to be seen as a joke in the neighbourhood so I gave up the relationship.”
Attitudes towards marriage in China have been slow to change, but progress is being made, Guangzhou Daily reported late last week, citing research by the institute of sociology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.