The Christian Science Monitor reported on Tuesday about the ever-growing epidemic of marriages of convenience, called a xingshi marriage, for gays and lesbians in China. Research estimates that there are approximately 30 million gays and lesbians between the ages of 15 and 60, but approximately 80-90% of these individuals eventually marry members of the opposite sex. Many xingshi couples do not live together and have separate same-sex relationships, maintaining contracts similar to prenuptial agreements to determine real estate rights, children, and shared incomes. A major reason for this trend is financial pressure: as prices in the growing Chinese market rise, more young adults become financially dependent on their parents, thus making it impractical to challenge them on issues of marriage and children. Men are more likely to experience a pressure to marry in order to continue a family line, resulting in a gross disproportion between gay men and the women they seek for a platonic partner. Tongqi, the straight wives of gay men, are often unaware of their husbands’ sexuality and suffer the consequences of a loveless marriage and exposure to STDs.
Although China is the case study in this article, nonsexual marriages of convenience are actually a worldwide trend in the international gay and lesbian community. They are often borne of financial concerns, as is the case in China, but are also common in nations in which homosexuality is a significant safety issue, such as Iran. In 1997, China decriminalized homosexual conduct and in 2001 removed it from the national list of psychological disorders, showing a heartening swing towards progress. Last summer, however, the Chinese government came under fire when it restricted the festivities of the state’s first gay pride week in Shanghai.
The issues surrounding perceptions of homosexuality in China are almost purely generational. In a culture where respect for elders is paramount, tension arises when parents fear their gay children will have no offspring to care for them in the child’s old age. Xingshi marriages merely serve to mask the problem, showing that gays can conform to expected norms if necessary, resulting in many to deem the sexuality as a lifestyle that is chosen, rather than inherited from the very parents gay children are trying to protect. A positive effect of the platonic relationships is the growing cognizance of the origins of marriage as a financial contract, one that used to be merely a Terms of Agreement, similar to the prenup-esque agreements between the members of xingshi marriages. In order for homosexuality to become normalized, at least in China, serious efforts need to be taken at the family level before attacking the greater perceptions of Chinese society. This involves a complete shift in cultural perspective, possible only with the growth of younger generations with more liberal viewpoints. The pressure to marry must be significantly reduced, plausible in an age of massive Chinese economic growth that encourages an increase of young, urban, single professionals. The question here remains whether the young generation can reconcile cultural values of respect for elders with growing numbers of homosexuals who pose a threat to the traditional values of many parents. For now, it appears that The L World will have to remain a purely American phenomenon.
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