28-year-old Zhang Yingru (a pseudonym) decided not to have a second child for the time being.
Four years ago, she and her husband “two marriages” to form a family, do not marry or marry. The agreement to two children, the older with the father’s surname, the younger with the mother’s surname. After the marriage, both parents’ homes alternate.
Today, she is quite close to both families, the biggest worry is the children. The mother-in-law and the mother are both precious grandchildren, each with their own education methods, secretly competing; two living habits, work and rest living different, children backwards and forwards, but also a bit confusing.
“Too much trouble”, Zhang Yingru felt tired, the original plan for the second child can only be shelved.
In Zhang Yingru’s area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the so-called “men do not pay the bride price, women do not accompany the dowry” two-headed marriage quietly emerged. It is closely related to the last century’s one-child policy, parents do not want their children to leave home, but also the so-called “heirloom” needs.
“Two-headed marriage is full of negotiation,” said Dr. Zhao Chunlan, a researcher at Fudan University’s School of Social Development and Public Policy. She previously mentioned in an interview with Surfing News, similar to “whose surname the children take, how to do the wedding house, bride price or not”, all need to be negotiated, the balance of marital life mostly rely on Compromise to reach.
So, at the moment of tilt, what happened? And how was the negotiation reached? Three people involved in “two-headed marriages” share with us the joys and sorrows of their respective family lives.
“When mother-in-law meets mother”
Zhang Yingru (pseudonym), 28 years old, from Nantong, Jiangsu
I’ve been married for four years, and it’s also a two-headed marriage, which is basically the case on our side.
When the wedding banquet is the same day with him to start, the morning to the car to receive me to his home, but my side also has a banquet, the two sides of the border, each side of the cost of each bear, the gift finally to our young couple.
The other side of the bride price of eighteen hundred and eighty thousand, put on the high hall as a witness, my family only took eighty-eight thousand, and added eighty thousand to buy a car, so it is equal to this money back, the bride price went a formality.
My husband and I are only children, both families are very close to each other, about fifteen minutes away by car. Because they are local people, so the two sides do not need to talk about some specific details before the wedding, just agree with your husband in advance, such as the child’s surname issue.
I hadn’t thought too much about it before, thinking the first child with the male surname, the second with the female surname. We now only have a male baby, is with the husband’s surname, but the account in my family, after the birth of the child I told him, if the account in his family then the child will have to take my surname.
After we got married, I would stay with my husband and child at my mother’s house for a month or two, and then go to my mother-in-law’s house for a month or two. Sometimes my mother-in-law would get upset after staying at my house for a long time. She wanted her daughter-in-law and children to be around so that it would be more lively, so she often urged us to go back to live.
But when you live on both sides of the fence like this, arguments are inevitable.
For example, in January, when we lived on my mother’s side, the children were healthy, but the next month, when we switched to my mother-in-law’s house, the children became sick, and my mother would nag, “Why are the children still alive and well at my house, but at her house they don’t feel well and come back sickly? “
The child’s work schedule also has a big impact. When they lived on my parents’ side, they went to bed early, and the children went to bed with them, but when they went to my in-laws’ house, they used to sleep late, and the children’s routine was disrupted when they changed environments, often crying and fussing, and it took them a day or two to get over it.
In order to keep the children from crying, sometimes we will live in one place a little longer, but the other party will have a problem. My mother-in-law even sent me a direct message last time questioning me, “You don’t seem to have come back to live for a long time, this is also home, you can’t just focus on your end ah. “
So I said it’s too much trouble or not to have a second one. My parents also mentioned having a second child with my surname, but I didn’t want to have one, so they didn’t care anymore.
Our own situation is the two sides of the rotation, but there are two marriages around is other situations, such as buying a suite of their own, and then pick up both parents each to live for a period of time, there will be other conflicts.
A colleague near me, she is picking up her mother-in-law and mom each to live for six months. The house used to be dark curtains, but his mother liked white curtains when she lived there, saying that dark colors were too dark in the house and bad for children’s eyes, so she changed the curtains. The mother-in-law moved in six months later and said that white does not block out light and sleep at night, and the two families were upset for a long time over a curtain.
In addition, we can’t get around the topic of mommy and daddy. In the two-headed marriage, when both sides live together in the man’s home, the woman will feel you listen to your mother a little more, will be unhappy to go back to live in their own home, the man’s mother-in-law is strange “how I said can not say, then you go back you go back. Sometimes the son is not allowed to go to the woman’s house again, the two people over time scattered.
But my lover and I are still more tolerant of each other, the most arguments is the issue of children. When she lived in his house, her mother taught more literacy, and when she lived in my house, my mother taught more math, and my mother-in-law and my mother had to compare the two, both saying that they were taught well, and they felt that the children they taught were different.
In fact, our side still prefers girls. I remember when I first gave birth, my mother-in-law looked at the first time and sighed and said, “Hey, it’s a boy, I have to suffer”, I was quite upset at that time, she said look at the belly It should be a daughter, how to become a boy.
She may think that girls are more considerate, because girls on our side of the family are the head of the family, at most both sides of the escrow, recruiting door-to-door son-in-law is also quite a lot, many Anhui Shandong people are willing to recruit to our side.
I think the biggest advantage of a two-headed marriage is that the children are taken care of by both parents, and both sides rush to take care of the children, so it’s quite easy for both of us. However, if you are like a married daughter, if your mother-in-law is a little bad, she will not be happy to take you, you can not go to work.
Of course, there are problems, in addition to the children’s work and education problems mentioned earlier, running around from both ends is really quite troublesome, like children slowly grow up, if the mother said a few bad words about her grandmother on this side, accidentally passed on, sometimes will be a bit of a spat, easy to cause some misunderstanding.
Because of the two-headed marriage with both sides of the relationship are quite close, when the mother-in-law met Mom, although particularly close but always a little contradictory.
“The eldest daughter has her father’s surname, the youngest son has my surname”
Zhou Tongtong (pseudonym), 33 years old, Yangzhou, Jiangsu
My husband and I are Yangzhou locals, both only children, two-headed marriage is a natural thing here for us.
In the 1980s, the one-child policy was particularly strict on our side. There were only two families in the village that had two children. One case was because the family had a brother and a sister, but the brother died and the sister was a son-in-law, so the state gave her the policy that she could have two sons-in-law.
Another is my neighbor, a year older than me was born in 1986, his uncle is deaf and mute, did not have children and did not get married, so the government gave the target to his family, so they gave birth to him. At that time I heard my parents say that in the eighties (over-birth) fines had to be fined tens of thousands of dollars, or quite a lot, and few people dared to do so.
This is the situation of the previous generation, resulting in our side of the only child is particularly large, I went to school as a child in a class of more than 40 children, at most two or three is the family has two children, the rest are only child. At that time we thought the whole country was like this, but later in college we realized that many people had sisters.
When I was a child, I lived in the countryside, including aunts, uncles and other relatives, living particularly close to each other, about three kilometers away, but now that I live in the city, it is farther away, and I am willing to have two children because I think one child is too cold.
When the wedding was held on both sides of the wedding banquet, although we are in a city, but also dozens of kilometers apart, his relatives over not very convenient, so we had two in a row, each at their own expense.
But there is no such idea as people say “married”, “married” or “married girls belong to outsiders”, we are the same after the wedding and before the wedding, go back or what, the parents’ attitude towards us and before the wedding is no different.
We don’t have a bride price, we don’t talk about a bride price, we don’t need a bride price, and I don’t have a dowry. The man came to pick up the bride with an open door seal, such as twenty, fifty, one hundred such, each open a door to give people a seal, the largest one at the time the open door seal about a million dollars, my mother later returned more than 10,000.
The two sides of the wedding money is about the same, his family bought a house my family paid for the renovation and bought a car, not like a traditional marriage, such as the man gave a bride price of more than 100,000, the better the woman’s parents may return the money, the bad may be the money left to the family’s brother, but we do not have this situation.
The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people around you who don’t want a bride price, and there is no such thing as a bride price. The two banquets received gifts to our own small family, my in-laws they are also very good, regardless of the small and large gifts, even if I did not meet, is a relative to the children’s New Year’s Eve money, they will not receive it themselves, will also give me all.
Our family and my generation are all girls, the family is not patriarchal, for example, my uncle gave birth to my sister, when there were already two girls, after the ultrasound to know that it is a girl, my uncle said that girls are good, but also quite precious.
On the issue of the child’s surname, I will discuss with my lover, both sides agreed in advance, the birth of two regardless of gender, the first with his surname, the second with my surname, and then after the birth of a small child, the first is a girl, the second is a boy.
After the first child was a girl, my parents also asked the male side at that time. We thought that if the second child was a boy, it might be better to take the man’s surname, so my parents said to the man’s side, “The first child is a girl, should the first child take our surname first? My father-in-law said it didn’t matter, so now my oldest daughter has her father’s last name and my youngest son has my last name.
My daughter’s class is also basically the same situation, the oldest with the father’s surname, the second with the mother’s surname.
I think it’s good, and I don’t have to worry about the lack of identity between the two children because of the different surnames, the child now asks both sides called grandparents, not grandparents, if he can’t tell the difference he will add a surname in front of the title to call.
We don’t make a difference to them. Like my oldest is my mother brought up, and then my second is my mother-in-law to help us bring, before my mother lived with us, now is my mother-in-law live with us, the children are the same good, the buy all buy.
We went out today and bought toys for our son and a copy for the girl, not to be patriarchal. My husband also told me that he said that in the future, if there is a house, it is impossible to leave all the things in the house to the son, the son has the girl must also have, I also have this view, we agreed.
Now we have bought our own house, only there is no difference with the marriage before, go back to freedom. The actual fact is that I am currently living with my in-laws at my husband’s house, and they help us bring up our children, so I will go to my mom’s house a little more if I go back, like when my mom used to live with us, I went to my father-in-law’s side a little more on holidays, and I don’t have any worries.
The reason is that we are a city, he is about 40 kilometers away from me, New Year’s Eve, noon in my house to eat, in the evening I will go to my husband’s house, driving a few minutes to get there. For example, if you spend New Year’s Eve on your side this year, you can come to my house next year to spend New Year’s Eve.
The men here are also quite understanding of the women, and will help to do things, bring up the children, my father-in-law is also, if my mother-in-law burned rice, he will take out the garbage, wash dishes, we all share to do a little easier.
I don’t think there’s any trouble with a two-headed marriage, like my mother-in-law who treats me as well as she treats a girl. If I sleep in the morning, she never gets stern or scolds me, she cooks breakfast for me when I get up and brings it to me.
But I’ve also heard of people arguing because of the family name, maybe before the good deal, and then not to comply, see the birth of a boy may go to grab the boy, but I think there is no need for this, marriage is not that for the benefit of the go, life is good on it.
“A balance of strength, in order to two and a family”
Wu Jiangchuan (pseudonym), 32 years old, Suzhou, Jiangsu
We just got married in September, both sides are only children, Suzhou is called “two and a family”, but not as the Internet said that live separately.
Both sides are local to Suzhou, both parents prefer this approach, there is a tacit understanding in the family conditions are also comparable – this is a very important premise, when my parents bought me a wedding house, and then her side before the wedding will also buy her a good wedding house.
The wedding banquet, like the wedding, are invited to their respective classmates, colleagues, family members, my side of the people invited over my money, her side of the people invited over her side of the money. There are also some negotiable, such as the wedding celebration we pay, the drinks they pay, this is in the case of both sides are more harmonious, two more balanced strength will appear two and a situation.
My father’s side is very open-minded, basically we make our own decisions, they do not interfere with this aspect. This may have something to do with our social environment, from the early generation, there is no patriarchal thinking, I grew up in an environment where women are in charge, my father listened to my mother.
They actually know this form of two-headed marriage, and has been popular for many years, but the previous generation is not so exaggerated, because they are not only children, after all, there are several siblings in the family, but to our generation, “after 80” is basically an only child.
When preparing for the wedding is the parents of both sides, including my wife and I will sit down to talk, the wedding car, wedding photos, after all, these are small, it does not matter, a few thousand things relatively speaking, or do not need to hang on the table to say, the last is our out, but they always out, like cigarettes, candy, gifts and so on, the two sides are in a more harmonious environment to discuss these issues, there is no dispute.
We do not talk about the concept of marriage, according to normal, before the marriage, the man is to pay some bride price, the woman will accompany some dowry, but in the two head of the wedding there is no such form. I was paying more than 30,000, but the love side returned to me, her parents gave me 50,000, my parents will also give her 50,000, and then to our two small families.
The two people are definitely living together after the wedding, generally speaking we will live separately for a week, sometimes my wife’s house for a few days, and then my house for a few days, then we will eat out on the weekend, and then back to the new house to live, not in one place for half a month or more.
My parents told me that as long as the child is my flesh and blood, even if all of them are with my wife’s surname does not matter, do not take the surname too seriously.
It’s not that you have to have two children, but it’s always more balanced to have two sides. The surname is agreed before the marriage, since it involves two families and a family, it is agreed that regardless of whether the first is a boy or a girl, the first child will have my surname and the second will have her surname.
But do not exclude that there will be individual cases, such as the first is a daughter, the second is a son, some people want the second son with the male surname, Suzhou side has also appeared in the middle of the case of reversal, but still relatively small. As far as my side is concerned, the relationship is quite good.
The child will be born in March next year, ready to let my parents take half a month, and then her parents take half a month, so as to take turns to try to avoid the problem of who takes more children with who.
I think the two-headed marriage for me is basically no disadvantage, both sides of the financial are more transparent, my parents and her parents will buy us insurance, we will set up a small treasury, both sides will put some money into it, my side of the friends are also operating in this way, two and a family, has been very common.
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