The Chinese traditional system features a hierarchical familial culture. When confronted with individualization and autonomy in choices of marriage and divorce, the system remains resilient and intervenes in the lives of young families. To analyze the discourses of divorced urban young adults, 46 participants (23 women and 23 men) aged 24–39 years were recruited from various regions in China. Through an analysis of the stressors involved in marriage and divorce, the concrete values and the conceptions shared in a unitary system of traditions were elicited. The promise of stability in a marriage was the appeal of this system while the focus on offspring was the general interest with evolutionary elements that justify this system. The concept of the individual autonomy of divorce grew from marital experiences and would be confined to the traditional system if its appeal remains unchallenged.
BermanW. H.TurkD. C. (1981). Adaptation to divorce: problems and coping strategies. Journal of Marriage and Family, 43(1), 179–189. https://doi.org/10.2307/351428
2.
CarterE. A.McGoldrickM. (1989). The changing family life cycle: A framework for family therapy (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
3.
ChangK. S. (2011). Social reproduction in an era of “risk aversion”: from familial fertility to women’s fertility. Family and Culture, 23(3), 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.21478/family.23.3.201109.001
4.
ChenX. (1985). The one-child population policy, modernization, and the extended Chinese family. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 47(1), 193–202. https://doi.org/10.2307/352082
ChiW.QianX. (2016). Human capital investment in children: an empirical study of household child education expenditure in China, 2007 and 2011. China Economic Review, 37, 52–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2015.11.008
7.
ChuangY. C. (2011). Divorcing China: the swing from the patrilineal genealogy of China to the matrilineal genealogy of Taiwan in Taiwan’s national imagination. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 40(1), 159–185. https://doi.org/10.1177/186810261104000106
8.
ColemanD. H.StrausM. A. (1986). Marital power, conflict, and violence in a nationally representative sample of American couples. Violence and Victims, 1(2), 141–157. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.1.2.141
9.
ConfuciusLeggeJ. (1971). Confucian analects, the great learning, and the doctrine of the mean (p. 370). New York: Dover Publications.
10.
DiamantN. J. (2000). Revolutionizing the family: Politics, love, and divorce in urban and rural China, 1949–1968 (Reprint 2019 ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
11.
FincherL. H. (2014). Leftover women: The resurgence of gender inequality in China. London: Zed Books.
12.
FongV. L. (2004). Only Hope: Coming of age under China’s one-child policy. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
13.
FrankD. J.CampB. J.BoutcherS. A. (2010). Worldwide trends in the criminal regulation of sex, 1945 to 2005. American Sociological Review, 75(6), 867–893. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122410388493
GottliebB. H.WagnerF. (1991). Stress and support processes in close relationships. In EckenrodeJ. (Ed.), The social context of coping (pp. 165–188). Boston, MA: Springer.
16.
GramsciA. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
17.
HaigB. D. (2014). Investigating the psychological world: Scientific method in the behavioral sciences. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
18.
HeX. (2021). Divorce in China: Institutional constraints and gendered outcomes (pp. 108–197). New York: New York University Press.
19.
HoD. Y. F. (1987). Fatherhood in Chinese culture. In LambM. E. (Ed.), The father’s role: Cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 227–245). Florence: Taylor & Francis Group.
20.
HuY.ScottJ. (2016). Family and gender values in China: Generational, geographic, and gender differences. Journal of Family Issues, 37(9), 1267–1293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X14528710
21.
HwangK.-L. (1987). Face and favor: The Chinese power game. American Journal of Sociology, 92(4), 944–974. https://doi.org/10.1086/228588
22.
JiY.-C. (2017). A mosaic temporality: New dynamics of the gender and marriage system in contemporary urban China. Temporalités, 26(26). https://doi.org/10.4000/temporalites.3773
23.
KoP.-C.HankK. (2014). Grandparents caring for grandchildren in China and Korea: Findings from CHARLS and KLoSA. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 69(4), 646–651. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbt129
24.
KolbT. M.StrausM. A. (1974). Marital power and marital happiness in relation to problem-solving ability. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 36(4), 756–766. https://doi.org/10.2307/350359
LeggeJ. (2004). The hsiao king, or classic of filial piety (pp. 16–17, 22–23). Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing.
27.
LeggeJ. (2010). The Li ki (pp. 689–693). La Vergne, TN: Kessinger Publishing.
28.
LeungA. S. M. (2003). Feminism in transition: Chinese culture, ideology and the development of the women's movement in China. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 20(3), 359–374. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024049516797
29.
LiangZ. (2012). “DINK” family: Young people's fashion?—An international comparative study. Youth Studies, 386(1), 22–30.
MaJ. (2011). Marriage and land property: Bilateral non-lineal kinship and communal authority of the Lahu on the southwest Yunnan frontier, China. South East Asia Research, 19(3), 495–536. https://doi.org/10.5367/sear.2011.0059
32.
McGoldrickM.PretoN. A. G.CarterB. (2016). The life cycle in its changing context: Individual, family and social perspectives. In: The expanding family life cycle: Individual, family and social perspectives, (5th ed., pp. 1–40). Boston, MA: Pearson.
33.
MenciusLeggeJ. (1970). The works of Mencius (p. 313). New York, NY: Dover Publications.
34.
MorinO. (2016). How traditions live and die. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
35.
NakazawaJ.HyunJ. H.KoP. C.ShwalbD. W. (2017). Grandparents in Japan, Korea, and China: From filial piety to grandparenthood. In Grandparents in cultural context (pp. 187–219). New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315642284
36.
NockS. L. (1988). The family and hierarchy. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50(4), 957–966. https://doi.org/10.2307/352107
RobertT. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In CampbellB. (Ed.), Sexual selection & the descent of man, 1871-1971 (pp. 136–179). Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company.
39.
ShiL. (2020). Reactive law or conservative law? The reform of divorce procedure in China. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 34(2), 126–144. https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebaa002
40.
ShuX.ZhuY.ZhangZ. (2013). Patriarchy, resources, and specialization: Marital decision-making power in urban China. Journal of Family Issues, 34(7), 885–917. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X12450001
41.
StoryL. B.BradburyT. N. (2004). Understanding marriage and stress: Essential questions and challenges. Clinical Psychology Review, 23(8), 1139–1162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2003.10.002
42.
StraussA. L.CorbinJ. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publications.
43.
TichenorV. J. (1999). Status and income as gendered resources: The case of marital power. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61(3), 638. https://doi.org/10.2307/353566
44.
WarnerR. L.LeeG. R.LeeJ. (1986). Social organization, spousal resources, and marital power: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48(1), 121. https://doi.org/10.2307/352235
YanY. (2013). Parent‐driven divorce and individualisation among urban Chinese youth. International Social Science Journal, 64(213–214), 317–330. https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12048
47.
YangS. (2011). The change of urban families in contemporary China and family cohesion. Journal of Peking University (Philosophy & Social Sciences), 48(2), 150–158.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
