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Elderly Chinese re-marry to face old age By Peter Harmsen, the Sify News
Just two weeks with her new family in a cramped "My stepson supports our marriage," said Song,
who is in her 50s. "He cares about his father and wants him to be
happy." Song is one of the lucky few in a country where remarriage
late in life, after a divorce or the death of a spouse, is frowned upon. Vehement protests from the younger generation are one of
the main challenges for Yu Jinghua at her work for Yinxing Marriage
Agency, a street-level community service in western "Not all children support their parents' wish to
remarry," she said. "They blame them, saying things like,
“Look, mom took care of you her entire life, and now all you think about
is tying the knot once again.” The rows can turn so serious that elderly Chinese wind up
in court with their own children. That is what happened to Wang Minxin, a
72-year-old in central But opposition to late remarriage extends far beyond the
narrow confines of the family, and there is still something of a
society-wide stigma attached to it. No elderly couple planning remarriage has ever entered
Milan Spring Wedding Photo, a studio in "It's a question of face," said Lu Jie, the
studio's manager. "It's a bit embarrassing to remarry if you're
getting on in years." That is all a legacy of pre-communist times, when old
people in "Remarriage late in life used to be a taboo,"
said Pei Xiaomei, a researcher on old-age issues at Despite the power of conservative attitudes, times are
changing, and it is estimated that seven percent of all single senior
citizens in The trend has been helped by the media, which have
reported extensively on a few celebrity cases with all the attention to
detail normally reserved for film stars. When 83-year-old Ruan Yonglan from eastern The government is quietly supporting this kind of
publicity, and it is doing it entirely for financial reasons. Just as this time bomb starts ticking away, the welfare
state has collapsed, and state enterprises no longer provide
cradle-to-grave care. Spouses' support of each other has emerged as a practical
alternative that costs the government nothing. This pragmatic attitude
towards remarriage is mirrored in the way many senior citizens look at the
issue. "Most old people want their future spouse to at least
enjoy retirement benefits and have a stable income," said Li Fen, a
manager at the Beijing Lanzhu Senior Citizens' Matchmaking Club, a
semi-private enterprise. "They don't fancy the prospect of shouldering too
much of a burden together in the future," she said. Love does not necessarily enter into the equation, as many
single seniors mainly look for companionship and financial stability. Some experts argue the focus on the practical value of
marriage is typical of an unsentimental Chinese way of getting by with
whatever works. "It's a question of having somebody to look after you
in old age," said Alfred Chan, an expert on "It's unlike in the west, where marriage has to be
based on some sort of romantic feeling, so there is a subtle
difference." For all the prejudice and ulterior motives, there are
stories with happy endings in between. At Yinxing Marriage Agency, Yu proudly points to a cluster
of full-colour wedding photos on the wall, showing successful matches. One of them is of a white-haired couple,
a former bank employee and a woman who used to run a kindergarten.
"They both lost their spouses," said Yu. "And right now,
they are on their honeymoon in southern Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |