Hunyin, xingbie, yu xing: Yige dangdai Zhongguo nongcun de kaocha 婚姻, 性别與性:一個當代中國農村的考察 (Marriage, gender, and sex: A study of a modern Chinese village) (review)

Reviews 297© 1999 by University ofHawai'i Press Yuan Xinbang, Luo Peilin, and He Yuying. Hunyin, xingbie, yu xing: Yige dangdai Zhongguo nongcun de kaochaQHM " ffij'JSSHí : ^?@#t^F^ Alía^J^Ü (Marriage, gender, and sex: A study ofa modern Chinese village). River Edge, New Jersey: Global Publishing Co. Inc., 1998. 267 pp. Paperback, isbn 1-879771-24. This book is based on the authors' personal observations in one village, located in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong Province, in the early 1990s. Since the late 1970s, great changes have occurred in Guangdong, especially in the Pearl River Delta area. The authors focus their study on changing attitudes toward marriage, women, and sex. For each ofthe three topics, three different personal stories are used to illustrate the traditional, transitional, and changing phases. From a methodological standpoint, the authors should be commended for a presentation that enables the reader to come to a concrete understanding ofthe changes that have taken place in China in recent times. For all three topics of discussion—marriage, women, and sex—a comparison is made between attitudes before 1949, during 1949-1979, and in the 1990s—three periods that are important because each represents the advent ofmajor political and social change. The basic findings here contradict the claims of some feminists that the development ofa modern market economy in China has been detrimental to women's interests. With regard to marriage, although the formal legal institution under Mao provided the support that gave both men and women some personal autonomy, the dominant family pattern in the period 1949-1979 was still based on the fatherson vertical relationship. The authors attribute this continuity to the persistence of a traditional agriculture-based economy. In contrast, the development ofa market economy after 1979 provided both men and women more economic opportunities, and both sexes began to pay more attention to the nature of the relationship between husband and wife. The concept ofindividualism began to weaken the centrality ofthe family. Compared with their parents who married during the late 1970s, young people today have greater decision-making power in marriage. Dating has become popular in those areas in the countryside where industrial development and other nonagricultural opportunities have begun to expand. During the recent economic transition, the traditional father-son vertical relationship became secondary to the new relationship between husband and wife. The authors stress the importance ofeconomic opportunities and their impact on the status ofwomen. When women have had more control over their finances, they have been able to achieve a greater degree ofpersonal autonomy. 298 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 This finding is in line with my own research in other parts ofrural China, primarily in Hubei, Hunan, and Hebei. The authors point out, however, that women also face special problems in the new, modern, market-based economy. A money-driven society has begun to see women as sexual objects—commodities to be purchased by men. The more economically advanced a region becomes, the more widespread is the problem of prostitution. In the village where the authors stayed, almost all men participated in the sex trade. The authors do not want to leave us with the impression of a sexual revolution: they point out that the rise ofthe sex trade suggests a deterioration of the status ofwomen. Thus, despite recent economic gains and the attainment of some degree of personal autonomy, women have, in fact, been devalued and, to a degree, lost control over their bodies. This finding is in line with the assertions ofmost Western feminists. The crux ofmany feminist theories on women and development is that economic development operates systematically to harm women's interests. But simply to state that an increasing number ofwomen in China have participated in the sex trade is not sufficient to support this argument. It is important to look at the nature ofprostitution and to understand that women's participation in it is a very complex issue. First of all, the number of the women involved in prostitution is still small compared to the number ofworking women as a whole. While prostitution historically was often the only occupation open to women, especially among the lower classes, in China today...