¹ According to census data from 1990 and 2000 the marriage rate in China is over 95 per cent among those in their late thirties; see Davin, D. (2007). Marriage migration in China and East Asia, Journal of Contemporary China, 16:3, pp. 89–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bullough, V. L. and Ruan, F. (1994). Marriage, divorce and sexual relations in contemporary China, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 25:3, pp. 383–391Google Scholar. China's divorce rate has quintupled within 25 years of economic opening up: from 0.4 per 1,000 people in 1985 to 2.0 per 1,000 people in 2010. Yet, it still compares favorably with, for example, the 2010 rate in the United States of 3.6 divorces per 1,000 people; see United Nations Statistical Division UNSTAT (2014). United Nations’ statistical yearbook 2011, available at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/syb/syb56/SYB56.pdf, [accessed 1 February 2016].

² Baker, H. D. R. (1979). Chinese family and kinship, Macmillan, LondonCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁴ Ebrey, P. B. and Watson, J. L. (1986). Kinship organisation in Late Imperial China 1000–1940, University of California Press, BerkeleyGoogle Scholar; Wolf, A. and Huang, C. (1980). Marriage and adoption in China 1845–1945, Stanford University Press, StanfordGoogle Scholar; Watson, R. S. and Ebrey, P. B. (1988). Marriage and inequality in Chinese society, University of California Press, BerkeleyGoogle Scholar; Ebrey, P. B. (2002). Women and the family in Chinese history, Routledge, LondonGoogle Scholar. See also various chapters in Brandtstädter and Santos, Chinese kinship.

⁵ Croll, E. (1978). Feminism and socialism in China, Routledge, London, p. 88Google Scholar.

⁶ Research was carried out between August 2006 and September 2007 with funding from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. A short visit to the field site followed in 2012 and 2014. All verbatim quotes in this text are translations from tape-recorded interviews and conversations, carried out by the author in standard Chinese (putong hua, 普通话). Even though villagers in Huining County, where most of the field research was conducted, speak local dialect, students as well as graduates from this region can speak standard Chinese. In these cases no translation was necessary. In conversations with parents and other villagers a local student helped with translations from local dialect to standard Chinese. Chinese terms in the text are transcribed in standard phonetic transcription of Pinyin. Translations from Chinese have been done by the author. All names of my interlocutors have been anonymized.

⁷ Ebrey, P. B. (1988). ‘Introduction’ in Watson and Ebrey, Marriage and inequality, p. 3.

⁸ In imperial China the design of a residence's entrance door(s) reflected the owner's wealth and social position.

⁹ Lavely, W. (1988). ‘Marriage and mobility under rural collectivism’ in Watson, and Ebrey, Marriage and inequality, p. 288Google Scholar. Fan, C. and Huang, Y. (1998). Waves of rural brides: female marriage migration in China, Annuals of the Association of American Geographers, 88:2, pp. 227–251CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Baker, Chinese family and kinship.

¹¹ See, for example, Wolf, M. (1972). Women and the family in rural Taiwan, Stanford University Press, StanfordGoogle Scholar; Judd, E. R. (1989). Niangjia: Chinese women and their natal families, The Journal of Asian Studies, 48:3, pp. 525–544CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Judd, E. R. (1994). Gender and power in rural north China, Stanford University Press, StanfordGoogle Scholar; Stafford, C. (2000). ‘Chinese patriliny and the cycles of yang and laiwang’ in Carsten, J.Cultures of relatedness, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 37–54Google Scholar. See also various chapters in Brandstädter and Santos, Chinese kinship, in particular Stafford, C. ‘Actually existing Chinese matriarchy’, pp. 137–153.

¹² Davis, D. and Friedman, S. (2014). ‘Deinstitutionalizing marriage and sexuality’ in Davis, D. and Friedman, S.Wives, husbands, and lovers, Stanford University Press, Stanford, p. 5Google Scholar.

¹³ Ocko, J. K. (1988). ‘Women property, and law in the People's Republic of China’ in Watson, and Ebrey, Marriage and inequality, pp. 313–346Google Scholar. Palmer, M. (1995). The re-emergence of family law in post-Mao China: marriage, divorce and reproduction, The China Quarterly, 141, pp. 110–134CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Evans, H. (1995). Defining difference: the ‘scientific’ construction of sexuality and gender in the People's Republic of China, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 20:2, pp. 357–394CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹⁵ Davis and Friedman, ‘Deinstitutionalizing marriage and sexuality’, pp. 1–40.

¹⁶ Farrer, J. (2014). ‘Love, sex, and commitment. Delinking premarital intimacy from marriage in urban China’ in Davis and Friedman, Wives, husbands, and lovers, pp. 62–96Google Scholar.

¹⁷ See, for example, Yan, Y. (2003). Private life under socialism. Love, intimacy, and family change in a Chinese village, 1949–1999, Stanford University Press, Stanford, p. 14Google Scholar. Cf. ibid. pp. 86–111 and Yan, Y. (2009). The individualization of Chinese society, Berg, Oxford and New York, pp. 57–84Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Yan, The individualization of Chinese society; Yan, Y. (2008). Introduction: Understanding the rise of the individual in China, European Journal of East Asian Studies, 7:1, pp. 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ For example, see Steinmüller, H. (2013). Communities of complicity: everyday ethics in rural China, Berghan, New YorkGoogle Scholar; Oxfeld, E. (2010). Drink water but remember the source: moral discourse in a Chinese village, University of California Press, BerkeleyCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liu, X. (2000). In one's own shadow: an ethnographic account of the condition of post-reform rural China, University of California Press, BerkeleyCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Yan, Private life under socialism, p. 220. Cf. Yan, The individualization of Chinese society, pp. xxviii–xxx.

²¹ Yan, Y. (2005). The individual transformation of bridewealth in rural north China, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11:4, pp. 637–657CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yan, Y. (2006). ‘Girl power’: Young women and the waning of patriarchy in rural north China, Ethnology, 45:2, pp. 105–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² Fong, V. (2004). Only hope: coming of age under China's one child policy, Stanford University Press, StanfordGoogle Scholar; Fong, V. (2011). Paradise redefined: transnational Chinese students and the quest for flexible citizenship in the developed world, Stanford University Press, StanfordGoogle Scholar.

²³ Kipnis, A. (2009). ‘Education and the governing of child-centered relatedness’ in Brandtstädter and Santos, Chinese kinship, pp. 204–222Google Scholar.

²⁴ Smart, A. and Smart, J. (2001). Local citizenship: welfare reform, urban/rural status, and the exclusion in China, Environment and Planning, 33, pp. 1853–1869CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ The others were rare opportunities for long-term mobility through a change of hukou via a career in the army or in the Party as well as assignment of work in state units.

²⁶ Croll, E. (1999). Social welfare reform: trends and tensions, China Quarterly, 159, p. 684CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smart and Smart, Local citizenship; Wang, F. (2010). ‘Renovating the great floodgate: the reform of China's hukou system’ in Whyte, M. K.One country, two societies: rural-urban inequality in contemporary China, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 335–366CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Participation at the exam in Huining County, with a total population of about 530,000 inhabitants today, was comparatively high in the first years after its reintroduction, with more than 1,000 candidates taking part in the exam in the years 1977–1979. The number of exam participants rose to 2,000 in 1989 and 3,000 in 1996. The proportion of candidates passing the exam was as low as 5 per cent in 1979–1981 and oscillated between 15 and 25 per cent from 1982 to 1999. Note that these numbers include secondary vocational institutions; see Huiningxian, difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 会宁县地方志编纂委员会 (2007). 会宁县志1990–2005 (Huining County Gazeteer 1990–2005), Gansu Province Publishing House, Lanzhou, p. 614; Yun, S. 员守勤 (2007). 会宁教育 600 年 (600 Years of Education in Huining), Gansu Press, Baiyin/Gansu, p. 255; Wang, Y. 王渊 (1989), 会宁教育研究 (Huining Education Research), Lanzhou University Press, Lanzhou.

²⁸ Wang, ‘Renovating the great floodgate’.

²⁹ Hebbel, J. (2004). ‘Social welfare in rural China’ in Ho, P., Eyfert, J., and Vermeer, E. B.Rural development in transitional China, Frank Cass, London, pp. 224–251Google Scholar.

³⁰ Wang Jin's reference to frequent visits by family members also hints at another aspect that may add to the potential for conflict in mixed rural-urban marriages: the particular Chinese fascination with family (separation and) reunion, expressed through a heightened concern with and elaboration of a wide range of related idioms and practices in Chinese everyday life, for example festivals of reunion, etiquette of (parting and) reunion, and commensality as reunion. Cf. Stafford, C. (2000). Separation and reunion in modern China, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stafford, C. (2003). Living with separation in China: anthropological accounts, Routledge, LondonGoogle Scholar.

³¹ During two short visits to Huining County in 2012 and 2014 I learned that the government had established a basic pension scheme for the rural population. In addition to their eligibility for a minimum livelihood security of 55 yuan per month, rural residents voluntarily pay into a pension fund that is subsidized by the provincial and county government. Moreover, following the promulgation of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care System by the central government in 2003, a basic medical insurance system has also been introduced for the rural population in Huining County. Rural residents voluntarily pay an annual contribution (which has gradually risen from an initial sum of 20 Yuan to 90 Yuan by 2014) and achieve eligibility for reimbursement for medical costs. As a tiered system, the insurance covers almost all costs for medical treatment in the village or nearby town, but only a certain percentage of the costs of medical services at county level. When seeing a specialist in the city, almost none of the costs are reimbursed.

³² Gansu nongcun nianjian bianzu 甘肃农村年鉴编组 (2007). 2006 甘肃农村年鉴 (2006 Statistical Yearbook of Rural Gansu), Gansu Statistical Yearbook Publishing House, Lanzhou. According to statistical data provided on the official website of the Huining County government, per capita cash income among the county's rural residents was 1310.19 yuan (1 yuan is roughly equivalent to 0.1 Euro) in the period between January and October 2007; see http://www.huining.gov.cn/zfxx/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=1737, [accessed 1 December 2014]. Tuition fees may vary according to the kind of university and study programme. In 2006 and 2007 annual costs for tertiary education usually amounted to roughly 10,000 yuan (including tuition, accommodation, and living expenses).

³³ In the late 1990s and early 2000s, enrolment in higher education expanded rapidly, with enrolment rates quadrupling between 1998 and 2004; see Bai, L. M. (2006). Graduate unemployment: dilemmas and challenges in China's movement to mass higher education, China Quarterly, 185, pp. 130–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This rapid expansion meant that while, for example, in 2006 the number of graduates increased by 22 per cent nationally compared to 2005, reaching a total of 4.13 million, the job market was expected to be able to absorb only 1.66 million new graduates in the same year; see Huang, C. (2006). ‘Bleak future for millions of graduates’, The South China Morning Post, 23Google Scholar November.

³⁴ In 2006 the average annual income in rural Huining County was 1,575 yuan, compared to an average annual per capita net income of 6,096 yuan—more than three times as high—in eastern China's Zhejiang Province. See http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/ProvinceView/164352.htm, [accessed 1 February 2016]. In the year 2000, more than two thirds of the 86 counties in Gansu Province were officially designated as ‘poor’ by the internationally used criteria of 1 US$ per head per day. See ‘China in numbers’ in UNDP China Human Development Report 2005, available at: http://www.cn.undp.org/content/china/en/home/library/human_development/china-human-development-report-2005.html, [accessed 1 February 2016].

³⁵ In 2006 about 20,000 pupils competed in the secondary high school entrance exam in Huining County for about 6,000 places at the five local senior secondary high schools. Since the rapid expansion of university enrolment quota in the late 1990s, about one quarter of the participants qualify for bachelor's programmes at universities (some of them on their second attempt) and another 50 per cent for junior colleges (dazhuan, 大专). Huiningxian, Huining County Gazeteer, p. 614; Yun, 600 Years of Education, p. 225.

³⁶ Obendiek, H. (2013). ‘When siblings determine your “fate”—sibling support and educational mobility in rural northwest China’ in Alber, E., Coe, C., and Thelen, T.The anthropology of sibling relations. Shared parentage, experience, and exchange, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 97–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ See, for example, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2018.html, [accessed 1 February 2016]. Davin argues that due to the cultural preference for sons, unbalanced sex ratios long predated family planning policy; see Davin, ‘Marriage migration’, pp. 88–89. Nevertheless, due to the availability of pre-natal screening and a new reluctance to have large families, the deficit of girls is more serious than ever, even though the accuracy of the sex ratio statistics may be debatable (due to female children often being underdeclared).

³⁸ Han, H. (2009). ‘Living a single life: the plight and adaptions of the bachelors in Yishala’, in Brandtstädter and Santos, Chinese kinship, pp. 48–66Google Scholar. Davin supports this argument with 1990 and 2000 census data which shows that Chinese men with little or no education have the greatest problem marrying—one third of all illiterate and semi-literate men and almost one tenth of men with only primary education remain unmarried in their late thirties. The situation had become worse by the year 2000, when significantly greater percentages remained unmarried in the 25–29 age group, but only a tiny percentage of men with junior middle education or above remained unmarried. Moreover, Davin's data shows that due to the tendency of Chinese men to be tolerant of marrying ‘down’ in terms of their bride's social and educational status, the deficit of potential brides is worst in the poorest regions; see Davin, ‘Marriage migration’, pp. 89, 91. It is estimated that between 2000 and 2021 there will be a total surplus of more than 23.5 million males unable to find wives two years younger than they are; see Poston, D. L. and Glover, K. S. (2001). Too many males: marriage market implications of gender imbalances in China, Genus, 2, p. 131Google Scholar.

³⁹ On the role uncles and aunts often play in educational support, see also Obendiek, ‘When siblings determine your “fate”’.

⁴⁰ During research in 2006/7 I conducted interviews with 51 graduates originating from rural Huining County who lived in Huining County, in Lanzhou city or in Beijing. Thirty-eight of these interlocutors were male.

⁴¹ It may also be the case that young women sometimes used their parents’ doubts to express pragmatic concerns they would not voice themselves. See Farrer, ‘Love, sex, and commitment’, p. 76.

⁴² Jankowiak, W. (1995). ‘Introduction’, in Jankowiak, W.Romantic passion. A universal experience?, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 1–19Google Scholar.

⁴³ According to Chinese kinship terminology, siblings of the same gender are addressed with serial numbers according to their position in the order of birth (‘the eldest’, ‘the second’, ‘the third’, ‘the fourth’, ‘the fifth’, ‘the sixth/the little one’) followed by their kinship position towards the speaker.

⁴⁴ Yan, Private life under socialism.

⁴⁵ Liu, In one's own shadow.

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