Class Categories and Marriage Patterns in Rural China in the Mao Era

This article investigates how political categories of class influenced mate selection and marriage practices in rural China in the Mao era. Based on qualitative and quantitative data collected in thirty villages in three counties in Hebei in summer 2005, it examines class endogamy/heterogamy; class, patriarchy, and gender; and class differentials in marriage practices. The main findings include the following: (a) Though marriages were formed predominantly within the same class category, cross-class marriages did occur, but marriages between opposite class categories were less likely during the Cultural Revolution than during the pre— and post—Cultural Revolution periods. (b) Women did not invariably marry up or within the class categories under the context of the class hierarchy and patrilineal inheritance of class labels. Women were likely to marry down the political ladder when they gained economically from marriage, or when they achieved some freedom and independence within the family sphere by not living with in-laws upon marriage. (c) Sons, not daughters, of landlords or rich peasants, if they got married, did so at an older age, with larger spousal age gaps; middle and upper middle peasants could better finance their children's marriages in terms of bride prices and dowries; and the children of landlords and rich peasants did not tend to marry someone from a long distance away.