Some people pointed out that an important cause for China’s new marriage law was to curb so-called marriage fraud, 婚姻詐騙(hun yin zha4 pian4) Some people try to cash in on marriage by marrying someone, then divorcing him/her upon getting whatever they want.
In Taiwan, we call a certain group of women 收屍隊(shou shi dui4), “body-burying team,” which refers to those women who deliberately marry elderly men, who might be, like 30 years older than themselves, wait a couple of years until the man dies and inherit part of his property. Those who “wait” are “ethical.” Imagine those who do not.
收屍隊are especially prevalent in communities of the veterans, who moved to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 from China. A lot of them had never intended to get married in Taiwan
Marriage indeed for some people is a quite profitable “investment.” I still remember vividly how a male teacher, an ex-coworker of mine, mocked us, a group of young married career women in the office, commenting that we were much “inferior to,” or “worth less” than an “old” woman (probably in her 50s) he knew, who was to marry a rich widower and got a big house and millions of cash as 聘金(pin4 jin)*. This “old” lady, according to him, though no “fresher” than us and had married several times, didn’t have to juggle between her family and career, working her ass off like us, who had never been married before marrying our husbands. (And probably virgins, he implied.) This woman got all we would probably have after decades of hard work only with a wedding.
Well, all I can say about this is to joke that my parents are to blame, for they never taught me that when I got married, I should have put all the above conditions into consideration.
Women are not the only side that can profit from marriage. Several years ago a scene from a news report impressed me a lot. 許純美(xu3 chun2 mei3), a billionaire from inheriting her deceased husband’s property who became well-known after a stray 12-year-old girl wondering at a mall was found out to be her biological daughter, who later turned a sensation in entertainment by playing a clownish role on TV talk shows for two years or so, was dressed in a wedding gown holding a plate with cash all over it in her engagement to a man much younger than her.
Such a scene incited sarcasm and criticism. One time when I was chatting with my good friend Mary and talked about this, she said in an indignant tone, “This is what a lot of men are doing. Why does it seem especially ridiculous when a woman is doing it?”
Money can’t buy love, but it can buy marriage. When engaged to a girl that was not of his daughter’s, but granddaughter’s age, didn’t Hefner know that such a thing wouldn’t have happened had he been not so famous and wealthy? Xu, later had several similar marriages but all ended with divorces, intermittently reported to have been beaten up by her little husband or paid up her husband’s debts from gambling.
I’ve been surrounded by single people that have never been married even in their late 30s or 40s, which has worried their parents, or the older generation as a whole. Taiwan’s birth rate 出生率(chu shen lu4) ranked the world’s lowest in 2009, which has a lot to do with the low marriage rate.
Why bother to get married when the conventional causes that make and maintain marriage are fading away? When women don’t need or want to get a financial 保障 and men don’t need or want to 延續香火, who will be enthusiastic about getting married and losing “freedom?” Not to mention the troubles you will encounter like the custody of kids or alimony when you unfortunately divorce.
I think China
(THE END)
*note: If you don’t know what聘金means, please refer to my previous writing with the title Prince white horse and the ring on April 30.
婚姻詐騙=婚姻诈骗
收屍隊=收尸队
婚前協議=婚前协议
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