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Much ado about love, money, marriage, East and West
By Lena Zhang |
July 30, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
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AN English friend of mine, in his mid-forties and never married, has expressed his concerns about the potential of being taken advantage of financially by his girlfriends.
The more handsomely he was paid at work, the more lingering his doubts about women's motives for dating him seemed to become.
He has been so adamant about finding someone who would love him for who he is, not what he has, that he would give a wide berth to women whom he suspected were not at least his equal in financial terms.
On the other hand, a 30-something Chinese-Australian mate with whom I shared a house for some time had been constantly put off by men who quizzed her about career, her living arrangements, even her parents' work, on a first date in poorly disguised attempts to gauge her financial standing.
She told me that once or twice she could see the light fade from their eyes as soon as they learned that she was working for a small company and living in shared accommodation. It so happened that she was quite frugal and very modest in her ways, despite heading the company at the time and owning substantial assets. What she thought was a great virtue played terribly against her in the modern dating scene.
It appears that the Chinese approach to relationships that Mr Bensuaski described in his article "Eastern girls seek stability, Western gals love" (Shanghai Daily July 22) has spread across the Seven Seas and from women to men.
I am sure all eight European girls Mr Bensuaski interviewed gave a different answer when asked about the most important qualities they would expect from a husband, which might have come more from the heart than from the head. However, there may be more in their answers than an indication of the different approaches to a romantic relationship between the East and the West.
Faux pas
Since women in their late twenties are generally still considered young in Europe, they are yet to feel the mounting pressure of finding a husband. When marriage is somewhat left out of the dating equation, love certainly becomes a much simpler matter for all.
Besides, citing anything other than love as the primary motive in finding a husband is a faux pas in modern Western societies. It is hard to say if those European girls also had a list in their subconscious laden with material expectations, albeit not as well thought-out or readily admitted.
Nevertheless the prevalence of cohabitation before taking the vow, and of prenuptial agreements, may have been signs that love doesn't always conquer all. Many Westerners have chosen to reserve commitment until "something would be sure to stay after being in love has burned away".
Or had the Chinese practical frame of mind perhaps been adopted in the West much earlier than we thought? In fact, if we walked down the lane of history we would see that love and marriage have never been one and the same.
Marriages of convenience rather than love have been orchestrated umpteen times on both sides of the world, in ancient times as well as at present. Some aimed at personal gains such as money, status, or citizenship, some for strategic purposes such as political stability, and others to hide a sexual orientation that the society hasn't yet fully accepted.
Before industrialism, marriage was largely a commercial act, planned by parents for their children in order to benefit the whole family. An example was that a daughter of a wheat farmer would marry the son of a goat herder then both families would share their products. Other examples include political marriages and marriages inside caste, eg, both the sister and the daughter of the king of Mitanni had been married to the pharaoh of Egypt in order to strengthen their political alliance.
The concept of romantic love as a reason for marriage only became widespread after industrialization, however, it still wasn't the only reason. Marriage as an institution has long delineated and blurred the boundary between private, family, and public affairs. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that exist solely for the purpose of arranging scam marriages between a US citizen and a foreign national because it's the easiest pathway to staying long-term in the States. The foreign nationals obtain their residency status or citizenship while the Americans reap their illegal financial rewards.
Get pregnant
And if Mr Bensuaski was aware of the story of Mr Right versus Mr Right Now, he would have heard that many gen-X Western women have taken to getting married for the sake of getting pregnant since babies became all the rage in parts of the English-speaking world. Although they might not put a house, a car, a good job, etc, on their agenda, the quest for a tangible, legitimate baby has nonetheless overridden the quest for love.
Being almost a hopeless romantic myself, I certainly have wished that only love would lead to and sustain an union of two souls. I have wished that life's most passionate relationship hadn't been reduced to logical details with nothing left to chance or the imagination.
I sometimes take comfort in thinking that, against all odds, some ill-matched unions of love still stood the test of time. Even after the "temporary madness" had worn off, all the incompatibilities, flaws, differences, and difficulties continued to lie low.
Perhaps those modern Western guys who crave true love, such as my English friend, should also ask themselves a question: Would they be willing to give it all up for a book of verses beneath the bough, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine ... and a woman they love?
And will it ever be possible for anyone, man or woman, to score a great catch without getting their feet wet in the river of love?
(The author is a reader of Shanghai Daily who now lives in Shanghai.)
The more handsomely he was paid at work, the more lingering his doubts about women's motives for dating him seemed to become.
He has been so adamant about finding someone who would love him for who he is, not what he has, that he would give a wide berth to women whom he suspected were not at least his equal in financial terms.
On the other hand, a 30-something Chinese-Australian mate with whom I shared a house for some time had been constantly put off by men who quizzed her about career, her living arrangements, even her parents' work, on a first date in poorly disguised attempts to gauge her financial standing.
She told me that once or twice she could see the light fade from their eyes as soon as they learned that she was working for a small company and living in shared accommodation. It so happened that she was quite frugal and very modest in her ways, despite heading the company at the time and owning substantial assets. What she thought was a great virtue played terribly against her in the modern dating scene.
It appears that the Chinese approach to relationships that Mr Bensuaski described in his article "Eastern girls seek stability, Western gals love" (Shanghai Daily July 22) has spread across the Seven Seas and from women to men.
I am sure all eight European girls Mr Bensuaski interviewed gave a different answer when asked about the most important qualities they would expect from a husband, which might have come more from the heart than from the head. However, there may be more in their answers than an indication of the different approaches to a romantic relationship between the East and the West.
Faux pas
Since women in their late twenties are generally still considered young in Europe, they are yet to feel the mounting pressure of finding a husband. When marriage is somewhat left out of the dating equation, love certainly becomes a much simpler matter for all.
Besides, citing anything other than love as the primary motive in finding a husband is a faux pas in modern Western societies. It is hard to say if those European girls also had a list in their subconscious laden with material expectations, albeit not as well thought-out or readily admitted.
Nevertheless the prevalence of cohabitation before taking the vow, and of prenuptial agreements, may have been signs that love doesn't always conquer all. Many Westerners have chosen to reserve commitment until "something would be sure to stay after being in love has burned away".
Or had the Chinese practical frame of mind perhaps been adopted in the West much earlier than we thought? In fact, if we walked down the lane of history we would see that love and marriage have never been one and the same.
Marriages of convenience rather than love have been orchestrated umpteen times on both sides of the world, in ancient times as well as at present. Some aimed at personal gains such as money, status, or citizenship, some for strategic purposes such as political stability, and others to hide a sexual orientation that the society hasn't yet fully accepted.
Before industrialism, marriage was largely a commercial act, planned by parents for their children in order to benefit the whole family. An example was that a daughter of a wheat farmer would marry the son of a goat herder then both families would share their products. Other examples include political marriages and marriages inside caste, eg, both the sister and the daughter of the king of Mitanni had been married to the pharaoh of Egypt in order to strengthen their political alliance.
The concept of romantic love as a reason for marriage only became widespread after industrialization, however, it still wasn't the only reason. Marriage as an institution has long delineated and blurred the boundary between private, family, and public affairs. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that exist solely for the purpose of arranging scam marriages between a US citizen and a foreign national because it's the easiest pathway to staying long-term in the States. The foreign nationals obtain their residency status or citizenship while the Americans reap their illegal financial rewards.
Get pregnant
And if Mr Bensuaski was aware of the story of Mr Right versus Mr Right Now, he would have heard that many gen-X Western women have taken to getting married for the sake of getting pregnant since babies became all the rage in parts of the English-speaking world. Although they might not put a house, a car, a good job, etc, on their agenda, the quest for a tangible, legitimate baby has nonetheless overridden the quest for love.
Being almost a hopeless romantic myself, I certainly have wished that only love would lead to and sustain an union of two souls. I have wished that life's most passionate relationship hadn't been reduced to logical details with nothing left to chance or the imagination.
I sometimes take comfort in thinking that, against all odds, some ill-matched unions of love still stood the test of time. Even after the "temporary madness" had worn off, all the incompatibilities, flaws, differences, and difficulties continued to lie low.
Perhaps those modern Western guys who crave true love, such as my English friend, should also ask themselves a question: Would they be willing to give it all up for a book of verses beneath the bough, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine ... and a woman they love?
And will it ever be possible for anyone, man or woman, to score a great catch without getting their feet wet in the river of love?
(The author is a reader of Shanghai Daily who now lives in Shanghai.)
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