Recently, I went back to my hometown, and while talking with my mother, I learned that there is a very peculiar phenomenon happening in my hometown.
That is, in recent years, there are a large number of single-parent families in the home, and these single-parent families are almost invariably composed of a young father plus a young child, and their number has far exceeded the normal range, the trend has become the county family composition of a main force.
Because of this phenomenon of doubt, I walked around my hometown, and old friends and relatives to talk about this matter, I did not expect a chat, but found a span of more than thirty years, tightly and twisted and strange butterfly effect.
My hometown of Xinhe County is Shijiazhuang and Xingtai junction of a county, small area, small population, history has been incorporated into the surrounding counties many times, and then many times be independent, and therefore in economic development has not been able to keep up with the times.
For a long time, our county ranked at the bottom of the economic development level in Hebei Province, and it was only in 2019 that Xinhe County was officially approved to withdraw from the list of national poverty-stricken counties.
The backwardness of economic development led to many lags in policy implementation and ideology, for example, family planning, for example, son preference.
In 1982, family planning officially became the basic state policy of China. From the 1980s to 1990, the implementation of family planning policy was very strict, and it was extremely common for women cadres in the movie “The Earth and the Sky” to persuade married women with children to have abortions with threats, or they would be fired from their public positions.
But when the policy was implemented in the subordinate counties and subordinate villages, it encountered considerable obstacles, because people here still wanted to have sons, and many non-government families preferred to pay fines and continue to have children until they had sons, or to find connections to find out the sex of the fetus earlier if it was a daughter, knowing that the policy no longer allowed it, and to have an abortion.
By the early nineties, in my hometown, there was already a countermeasure that “if the first child is a daughter, another child is allowed”, but of course, if the second child is still a daughter, it is not allowed to continue.
This led to a phenomenon that became common for us later, that is, each family either has only one son, or several daughters and a son.
So, in the county marriage market after 2000, men still dominate, even until around 2010, the situation is still the same, because the number of marriageable women is in fact higher than the number of marriageable men.
After all, theoretically speaking, under the fertility concept and fertility reality of “either have only one son or have several daughters until you have a son”, the county will not have the phenomenon of “fewer women and more men, an imbalance in the ratio, resulting in a large number of bachelors,” as we all know later. “This phenomenon, or at least not so soon, will not occur.
But a reason from the regional character of the province of Hebei, resulting in the phenomenon accelerated, that is the middle, that is not to go to extremes.
The primary reason for the imbalance between men and women is, of course, the concept of “all want to have sons”, which has led to a slow imbalance in the proportion of men and women in the next generation, but there is also an almost equally important reason, which is that Xinhe County and even Hebei Province, “to a certain extent, but not extreme son preference for women “The current state of mind.
If it were an extremely patriarchal area, then women would have no chance of getting an education at all, let alone getting into college or leaving their hometowns, where they would be stuck to begin with.
If it is a completely non-patriarchal area, then men and women have equal access to education, and the probability of leaving and staying in the hometown is also equal, which will also slow down the emergence of gender imbalance.
But my hometown is neither of these, it is the same as the province of Hebei, maintaining a consistent middle ground.
To be fair, Xinhe County can in no way be considered an extremely patriarchal area, news reports and television episodes often appear in the kind of crazy oppression of daughters to fund sons is almost non-existent here.
And even if the economic development is backward, but after all is located in the plains, by farming is also to ensure the basic income and livelihood, that because of the lack of money will decide not to provide for their daughters to continue their education, is also rare.
But Xinhe County, Hebei Province is definitely not an area of gender equality, until the first half of this year, the rural areas around Shijiazhuang will still appear “after the demolition of housing for men, not for women,” such news.
It has the bad habit of giving preference to men over women, but at the same time it accepts part of modern thinking, and to some extent it also believes that men should not be given preference over women, so there is this “certain degree of preference for men”.
Do not underestimate this small difference, it is this difference led to the dramatic changes that occurred later.
This moderate and tangled patriarchy is reflected in the specific life, although there is no drastic difference in treatment, but the degree of favor and training of the family son is significantly higher than the daughter.
The son wants to study, to go to school, the family is absolutely to support, daughter wants to study, to go to school, although the family will have hesitation, will be a little reluctant, but most families are willing to pay for, most families hold the attitude is “since you are willing to go, then I will try to pay”.
Although we always say “on the signs regardless of the heart, on the heart of no one perfect”, but this mentality and action on the subtle differences in treatment, but directly led to a family of sons and daughters to treat “study for college” this thing is completely different attitude.
Daughters know that their family status is not as good as their sons, in order to have a better future and life, most girls will choose to do their best to study well, because they know that this is almost their only and best choice, otherwise, they will have to stay in this national poverty-stricken county, early marriage and children, early for a wife and mother.
My parents are both elementary school teachers, in their more than 30 years in the field, the last people to successfully complete high school, college, leaving our county are almost all girls, most of the boys will be in elementary school to junior high school loss of a group, in junior high school to high school loss of a group, until the examination for college, a class in elementary school can be the last remaining one or two boys has been considered rare.
Because for the sons in the family, “study, go to school, go to college, leave here” is not the best choice.
In the patriarchal atmosphere, which is not extreme but permeates all aspects of life, the sons of most families are grown up in an unintentionally spoiled, unobtrusive but real atmosphere of favor.
For example, many aspects of the wedding and funeral can only be attended by the male members of the family, for example, to this day, there is still a “family property does not have to be shared with women” bad practice.
So, in the eyes of men who grew up in this atmosphere, they can live comfortably without going to school or studying, and it is not a tempting option to go to university or leave home.
In this way, after 2010, with a large number of women in the younger generation leaving for school, the marriageable men who chose to stay in the county found that the scales of the marriage market began to tip to the other side, not only is it increasingly difficult for them to get a wife, and even if there is a suitable candidate, the bride price demanded by the woman also began to be higher than a year, from tens of thousands to more than 100,000, or even 200,000, 300,000, have become the numbers on the table. The numbers on the table.
Last year, a town in our county elementary school unmarried female teacher died in a car accident, a week after the funeral, a family came to the door to say marriage, to his family’s deceased son with a medieval marriage, when the bride price given is 200,000.
Underworld marriage is still so, not to mention the ordinary marriage of the living.
Because of the family planning policy, many families only have sons, not daughters, resulting in an imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the county, and because of the subtle patriarchal atmosphere, resulting in a large number of women have the awareness and motivation to work hard, study, and leave the area, which further exacerbates this imbalance.
As a result, the number of single men of school age began to far exceed the number of single women of school age, and as a result, the bride price required for marriage began to rise.
It is still not beyond our imagination that this is a problem of imbalance between men and women and the increase of single men that has been reported many times.
But what happened next was beyond anyone’s expectation.
When a county has a large number of single men of the right age, they are in their early twenties, but can not find single women of the right age to fall in love, let alone get married, they are not willing to stay single, but can only be frustrated again and again in the dating market, what will they do?
They turned their attention to married women, in the long-term hormonal impulse and repression, morality or not, cheating or not, have become irrelevant, they began to desperately look for opportunities to pursue married women, the degree of enthusiasm, the attitude of sincerity far beyond people’s imagination.
On the one hand is the passionate young men, the other side is to see their own husband, for these women, it is not a difficult choice to make.
Most of them are those girls who failed to go to college and left their hometowns, some graduated from high school, some graduated from junior high school, they came out to work early to earn money, then under the urging of their families, before they recognize what kind of life they really want, they entered into marriage early in a confused manner and gave birth to children.
Some of them work as cashiers in supermarkets, some in eyeglass case factories gluing eyeglass cases, some in textile factories as workers, some in clothing stores selling clothes, they have almost never been pursued so passionately and sincerely, in their words, it was the first time in their lives they knew what it was like to be loved passionately.
Although this passionate love actually comes from an unhealthy source, but what’s the big deal, love is still love after all.
So, a large number of married women began to choose to divorce or elope, some still remain in the local area, and some just run away to faraway places, so that you can never even see people again.
In this situation, a lot of husbands began to watch their wives closely, going to and from work are to follow, walking to buy food are also to follow, work outside the home is to follow, they are afraid that their hard to get married wife will be which young man abducted, but even so, but also failed to stop more wives run away.
So, after a massive divorce, there was this peculiar phenomenon: the number of intact families in the younger generation began to decrease rapidly, and a large number of families consisted of a single father and a child, while the mother had left long ago, or even followed her boyfriend far away from home.
This is a direction that no one expected.
Because of family planning and everyone wanting to have sons, the ratio of men to women began to be out of balance.
Because of the emphasis on men and the disregard for women, men chose to stay in the county in pampering, while women went to the city to be strong, so the ratio of men to women was further imbalanced.
Because the gender imbalance is becoming more and more serious, so single men of the right age can not find single women of the right age to fall in love and get married, so they began to enthusiastically pursue married women.
Because growing up in a patriarchal atmosphere, most married women also have not really felt loved and cherished, so when faced with a passionate young man and look at their own husbands, without much difficulty, they made their own choice.
So, a large number of women chose to leave.
And divorced men alone with children in today’s county marriage market has no advantage, so they will have to remain single.
This has led to the emergence of the peculiar phenomenon of “a single father plus a child family” in the county.
When the family planning policy was implemented, when the decision was made to abort the female child and keep the male child, when the decision was made to favor the son over the daughter, those people must not have imagined that all these choices and decisions would eventually lead to the soaring divorce rate and the emergence of a large number of single father families today.
One choice and decision after another eventually led to a future that no one could have anticipated.
What kind of future will the current situation of “a large number of children raised by single fathers” lead to?
No one knows, and no one can predict, and that’s the subtlety of human nature.
Because of this certain degree of patriarchal atmosphere, it led a group of women to leave their hometowns by way of college entrance exams, and because of patriarchy, it led another group of women who did not leave their hometowns by way of college entrance exams to leave their loveless families and even their hometowns in a different way.
The “male” who is valued in the “patriarchy” is instead consciously or unconsciously stuck in the old home because of the family’s favor, and is now losing a lot of wives and finding it difficult to marry again because of the unhealthy importance they once had.
It’s really ironic, I must say.
In making policies, in following bad habits, in consciously and unconsciously making biased and biased choices, in thinking that you can manipulate other people’s lives, without realizing that there will always be gaps in human nature that one cannot predict, that is where the light shines out.
In the line of fate, the women who started unfavorably found their lives in different ways, while the men who had the upper hand at the beginning ended up falling into the trap of fate one after another.
This is where the paradox of fate and human nature comes in.
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