Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses individual and family strategies towards marriage in today's urban China. It will develop on the process of acquaintanceship among prospective families and youths, the way they engage in relationships, and the criteria of their search.

Paper long abstract:

Caught in the context of a highly competitive development process, within the framework of a policy that limits their reproductive capacity to a single child, PRC urban families have, in recent decades, attached growing importance to their child's education, aiming to lead them to professional and personal success. They thus place the burden of an undisappointable promise for the future on their heirs, making of them what Vanessa Fong calls their « only hope » (Fong, 2004).

Within this framework, single-child marriages are a central issue of concern for these families, for whom any mistake in the development of their child's life could represent a menace for their future lifestyles. In recent years, observable trends of transformation of the practice of « mutual familiarization » (xiangqin 相亲) - an important step in the acquaintanceship of families before the wedding - reveals its centrality for maintaining and developing their life resources.

Among these evolutions is the appearance of anxious bachelors' parents gatherings within city parks in the 2000s decade, all over the country. It consequently brought questions to light, concerning approaches to the question of marriage, and the social issues that the connection of two families through this social contract engages. The interconnection of personal sentiments, concrete considerations, and desires of success, thus appear as a very controversial issue. From fieldwork and interviews conducted within parental meetings in the cities of Beijing and Chengdu, I propose to present the concurrent social strategies they reveal, and the way parents discuss them.