The high price of love
By Qiu Lin (China Daily)Updated: 2007-02-06 11:06
This love match aside, a recent online survey conducted by the Beijing-based China Youth Daily survey center indicates that marriage does have a price.
According to Fang Yihan, an editor at the survey center, 58.8 percent of men and 51.6 percent of women believe there is a "starting price" in marriage.
Among the 10,050 female respondents, 47.4 percent thought it's OK for a man to have no car, but not OK to have no house when it comes to marriage, while 39.3 percent of the 8,962 male respondents agreed. Meanwhile, 7 percent women said they wouldn't consider marrying someone with no house or car, and 11 percent men said they wouldn't propose to their girl friends if they had no car or house.
A typical representation of one side of the views said, "I'd rather weep inside a car instead of smiling from the back seat of a bicycle."
Olivia Jiang, 25, is still looking for her Mr Right. By Mr Right, she means a perfect combination of love and wealth.
"I don't really care if he has a house or a car, but he must have money. No matter how deeply you love each other," she says, "the marriage would sooner or later be ruined by financial difficulties."
Working for an international consulting company in the capital, Jiang finds her monthly salary of 7,000 yuan ($875) can hardly meet her needs. She wants to buy a pair of her dream shoes, but she will have to wait until the shoes are on sale. "Even so, they will still cost more than 1,000 yuan ($125)," Jiang says.
For Jiang, her ideal husband would be one making at least 100,000 yuan ($12,500) a month. Then they wouldn't have to worry about a mortgage, a car, or the cost of raising a child when starting a family.
Some would argue that today's youth, women in particular, are too driven by
material wealth, and thus seem mercenary.
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