Why Xi Wants Cheaper Weddings for China

In Chongqing, one of China’s biggest cities, engaged couples will soon be eligible for a government-sponsored group wedding, according to a three-year “wedding-customs reform” pilot announced last week. The catch is that extravagances — and certain ancient marriage traditions — will be officially frowned upon.

The goal of the reform is to eliminate costs and customs that are contributing to China’s declining marriage and birth rates. Longer-term, officials hope, the reforms will help prevent a looming population decline. It’s a risky bet. For decades, the central government has, with a few exceptions, allowed Chinese families to conduct their personal affairs with little interference. Extending state regulation to wedding customs is a significant reversal. Rather than produce a baby boom, it’s more likely to produce resentment.

Historically, Chinese marriages were arranged to create the best possible union between families (the couples themselves were often secondary concerns). To secure the arrangement, a groom’s family was expected to pay a “bride price,” which could include everything from jewelry to cash to farm animals. In less affluent circumstances, the price was considered compensation for a daughter’s lost labor; elsewhere, it was viewed as a demonstration of sincerity and a means of binding the families. The practice persisted openly until the 1950s, when China’s new Communist government outlawed forced marriage. However, in the 1980s it re-emerged as the economy and politics re-opened.

The modern incarnation includes some twists. Because Chinese law favors the property rights of men in the event of a divorce, the bride price protects a wife and her family if the marriage goes south. In rural communities, where women are relatively scarce (due to the lingering effects of population-control policies), bride prices are rising rapidly. In some areas, it’s not unusual for families to ask for $30,000 or more for their daughters — a sum that could clean out the savings of a groom’s extended family.

Understandably, rising bride prices are often cited as a key reason for the country’s declining marriage rate. But other expenses weigh heavily too. In China, wedding banquets are richly symbolic events that not only celebrate the couple, but allow a groom’s family to demonstrate respect and bond with the guests (banquet-related corruption is a longstanding problem). To do so, families spend, often lavishly. For the upwardly mobile and socially ambitious, this has led to a kind banquet arms race (and contributed to China’s booming, $130 billion wedding industry).

For decades, the authorities have been content to leave such matters to families. But China’s looming demographic crisis, combined with President Xi Jinping’s desire to ease pressure on a squeezed middle-class, is changing the equation. In April, the government announced that the wedding-reform plan would be piloted in 15 cities and districts. Among other goals, it aims to reduce the costs of marriage and eliminate vulgar practices — such as groom-hazing — that are out of tune with “core socialist values.”

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As with most Chinese regulations issued on a national level, the details have been left to local governments to sort out. This had led to a period of rapid wedding-custom innovation, along with official attempts to counsel moderation. In Chengdu, for example, the government has constructed a romantic lover’s lane, complete with heart-shaped traffic signals, along which couples are urged to contemplate the seriousness of their new union — and the merits of group weddings, which are occasionally held alongside.

Elsewhere, the persuasion is more overt. Guangzhou has established premarital counseling services that, among other things, provide the local government an opportunity to discourage couples from following expensive wedding customs. In rural Shaanxi Province, where women are especially scarce, a committee of “prestigious villagers” lobbies families to reduce their bride prices. In one case, the committee succeeded in shaving 60,000 yuan ($9,300) off the sum after six hours of talks with the bride’s mother. In Chongqing, location of the most recently announced pilot, the government will soon require local leaders and social-media celebrities to certify their adoption of “simple and moderate” wedding practices.

None of these efforts will succeed in overturning traditions that, in some cases, date back thousands of years. More important, they’re unlikely to change the minds of women who’ve decided to put off marriage and children to pursue careers. At best, they might stigmatize ostentatious banquets. But more heavy-handed efforts will only drive the most expensive rituals out of sight — into the private sphere that Chinese families fiercely defend as their own.