Couples and children

“To marry” is 结婚 jiéhūn, literally “to tie the marriage”. The character 婚 hūn brings together the woman, 女, and 昏 hūn, dusk: ancient dictionaries explain that the bride was fetched at nightfall. But 昏 also gives the sound, and I couldn't say which of the two roles came first. The most instructive thing is the pair of verbs Chinese keeps for each spouse. The woman 嫁 jià: 女 next to 家, the house ⟶ she leaves for her husband's house. The man 娶 qǔ: 取 “to take” above 女 ⟶ he takes a wife. So you say 她嫁给了他, “she got married to him”, and 他娶了她, “he took her as his wife”, never the other way round. The vocabulary still bears the mark of a world where the young woman left her family, the world of the 外 “outside” on the page Family and relatives.

When you talk about your spouse, it all depends on the register. 丈夫 zhàngfu and 妻子 qīzi are neutral. 老公 lǎogōng and 老婆 lǎopo, “old gentleman” and “old lady”, are the everyday words, even among newlyweds (the “old” is affectionate here, not rude). 爱人 àiren, literally “the loved person”, took hold in the People's Republic for either spouse; be careful, though: in Taiwan it rather suggests a sweetheart, or even a lover. Note too that a married Chinese woman keeps her own name: there is no married name on her papers, even if people will readily call her 王太太, “Mrs Wang”, after her husband's name.

In the past, people hardly chose each other. Marriage went through a 媒人 méiren, the matchmaker, and had to unite families that were 门当户对 mén dāng hù duì, “with matching gates and door leaves” ⟶ of the same rank. It was also said that 月老 yuèlǎo, the old man under the moon, tied the ankles of future spouses together with a red thread from the day they were born. 相亲 xiāngqīn, the arranged meeting, has not disappeared: in Shanghai, in People's Park, anxious parents put up their single child's profile every weekend. 催婚 cuīhūn, the pressure to get married, peaks at New Year (see our page The Spring Festival), when the whole family asks why you still aren't married. It was in this climate that the word 剩女 shèngnǚ, “the leftover woman”, appeared, for a single woman over twenty-seven or so. The word is harsh. The law, for its part, only asks for a trip to the civil registry office to 领证 lǐngzhèng, “collect the certificate”, a little red booklet.

On the wedding day, everything is red and everything comes in pairs. The character 囍, 双喜 shuāngxǐ, “double happiness”, is stuck on doors and windows. A legend attributes it to 王安石 Wáng Ānshí, who passed the examinations and got married on the same day, but I take it for what it is, a pretty story. You don't say “go to a wedding” but 喝喜酒 hē xǐjiǔ, “drink the wine of joy”, and the guests go home with 喜糖 xǐtáng, wedding sweets. The ancient rite, 拜堂 bàitáng, comes down to three bows: to heaven and earth, to the parents, then of the spouses to each other. Today, many brides change outfits during the day, a red Chinese dress in the morning, a white 婚纱 hūnshā in the evening (white, the colour of mourning, took a long time to be accepted).

Married life has its jokes. A husband who meekly does as his wife says is a 妻管严 qīguǎnyán, “strictly controlled by his wife”, which sounds almost like 气管炎 qìguǎnyán, bronchitis: only the tone of the first syllable changes. The pun is so well known that you only have to say a friend has “bronchitis” to make the whole table laugh. When it comes to separating, an amicable 离婚 líhūn is also settled at the civil registry office. However, since 2021, the Civil Code has required spouses to take thirty days to think it over before confirming their application, the 离婚冷静期 líhūn lěngjìngqī, “the period for calming down”.

Having children was long a matter of State. From 1980 to 2015, the one-child policy produced the 独生子女 that the page The ages of life talks about; a second child, 二胎 èrtāi, was only allowed for everyone in 2016, a third in 2021. And yet many young couples want only one, or even none: these are the 丁克 dīngkè, borrowed from the English DINK (double income, no kids). The pressure, for its part, goes back a long way. Mencius, 孟子 Mèngzǐ, said: 不孝有三，无后为大, “of the three failings in filial piety, the gravest is to have no descendants”. Some scholars today debate the exact meaning of 无后, and I won't enter into that debate. But that is the reading Chinese parents have held on to.

When it comes to education, two proverbs sum up the ambition: 望子成龙 wàng zǐ chéng lóng, “hoping your son becomes a dragon”, and 望女成凤 wàng nǚ chéng fèng, “that your daughter becomes a phoenix”. Mencius's mother, so they say, moved house three times, 孟母三迁 Mèng mǔ sān qiān: she left the neighbourhood of a cemetery, then that of a market, to settle at last near a school. The recent words are blunter. A 虎妈 hǔmā, “tiger mother”, pushes her children relentlessly (the word spread with Amy Chua's book, in 2011). 鸡娃 jīwá comes from 打鸡血, the chicken-blood injections that were supposed to restore energy in the 1960s ⟶ doping your child with activities. At the other extreme, 散养 sǎnyǎng, “free-range rearing”, lets the child breathe. Personally, I am wary of both excesses: a pupil pushed too hard grows weary, a pupil never pushed stops at the first difficult character.

As always, this vocabulary spills over into everyday language. 宠 chǒng, “to spoil”, gave 宠物 chǒngwù, “the thing you spoil” ⟶ the pet. 惯 guàn, “to let everything pass”, is also the character for habit, 习惯: a child who is 惯坏了 is a child who has been allowed to pick up bad habits. Two dishes even carry the couple in their name: the Cantonese 老婆饼 lǎopo bǐng, “wife cake”, and the 夫妻肺片 fūqī fèipiàn from Sichuan, slices of spicy beef (usually without any lung) that, so the story goes, a couple from Chengdu sold in the 1930s. The matchmaker, finally, comes out of a play: 红娘 hóngniáng is the maid who arranges her mistress's love affair in 西厢记, “The Romance of the Western Chamber”.

This page follows on from the page Family and relatives, where you will find grandparents, uncles, cousins and in-laws. Meeting people, love and quarrels will have their place in the “Relationships” subcategory. All in good time.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order is shown stroke by stroke, with the arrow that gives the direction of the movement.