THW Support Naked Wedding

1. THW Support Naked Wedding Speaker: Xu Qi

2. Girls, please imagine your boyfriend’s proposal!

3. Individual case (Zhang Yi, a 28-year-old editor at the fashion magazine Sunshine)： One night at the end of 2008, her boyfriend simply said: "My mother has asked us to register for the marriage certificate as soon as possible. "On Jan 6, 2009, the couple took a day off and registered their marriage. Instead of a banquet, their wedding ceremony was a 100-yuan ($15) dinner at a small restaurant where they first met. When Zhang's parents asked them for wedding photos, she said they had no time for that, as the pair had to work the next day. Zhang Yi and her husband are happy with their ‘naked marriage’.

4. What is naked wedding? The definition of naked wedding from a witty poem on major BBS and SNS websites: "No apartment, no car, nor diamond ring; no wedding ceremony, nor honeymoon; each of us pays 4.50 Yuan ($0.66), and we get a wedding certificate to start a new life.” It is said that today’s getting married is so cheap. It costs only 9 Yuan. It’s my treat.

5. Half-naked marriage: • The man should at least provide a ring or something else for his beloved when they get hitched. • Naked (half-naked) wedding ≠ No money

6. Cause • Soaring price of commodities • Pursuit of true love

7. Soaring price of commodities (1) • CPI (Consumer Price Index) from National Bureau of Statistics of China: • 2007:4.8%,2008:5.9%,2009:2%,2010:3.3% • Do not include price of real estate, education and medical treatment. • Soaring housing price • Statistics: 2010 Top 5: ①Shenzhen：22304，②Shanghai：20186，③Wenzhou：20050，④Beijing：19999，⑤Hangzhou：16360(incresed by 12%) • A survey in Zhuhai: 92.63% of people think the high price of house is the key factor of naked wedding

8. Soaring price of commodities (2) • E.g. • Cost of a man to get married in Hangzhou: 2.5million • House: 20000*100㎡=2 million, fitment: 200000, wedding:100000, other expense (honeymoon):200000 • Suppose the man have 300000 deposit and earn 100000 per year: (2500000-300000)/100000=22 years

9. Pursuit of true love • Post -80s tend to be fashionable. • 5.73% of young people choose naked wedding to keep up with fashion.

10. General public’s attitude towards naked wedding • A survey conducted by sohu.com last month shows 43 percent of 3,413 people preferred a naked marriage. They said it is wrong to base a marriage on material goods, like an apartment or car. Opponents of this idea respond: "Don't talk about love when you don't have a material base." • About 80 percent of men support naked marriages, while 70 percent of women thought they were not reliable. Of these women, 44 percent thought half-naked marriages were acceptable. "If a man does not give you the wedding you want, will he take care of you whole-heartedly in the future?" wonders one anonymous netizen on sohu.com.

11. Marriage • Definition of marriage • Goal of marriage • Relationship between marriage and material base

12. Definition of marriage（1） • The History of Human Marriage (1921 by Edvard Westermarck ): • Marriage is a more or less durable connection between male and female lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring. • Edmund Leach： • Marriage is a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship, is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his society or social stratum.

13. Definition of marriage（2） • Confucius: • Marriage is the union of two different surnames, in friendship and in love, in order to continue the posterity of the former sages, and to furnish those who shall preside at the sacrifices to heaven and earth, at those in the ancestral temple, and at those at the altars to the spirits of the land and grain.

14. Goal of marriage • If you want to read about love and marriage, you have to buy two separate books. • ——Alan King • Differences between love and marriage: • 1. Love is a feeling or an emotion, whereas marriage is more of a ceremonial event to formalize a change in one’s civil status from being single to being married. • 2. Marriage is more equated to commitments, whereas love doesn’t necessarily have any, unless it is the romantic type of love. • Goal of marriage is to establish a stable relationship between man and women and to give birth to the next generation.

15. Relationship between marriage and material base • An Egypt saying: If poverty enter from the window love go out from the door. • Global Times(2006-05-15): • The number of divorced couple in China: 341000(1980), 800000(1990), 1.21 million(2000), 1.331million(2003), 1.613million(2005) • One key reason of divorce rate’s increasing: • People’s increasing expectation for love and material increases.

16. Advantages of naked wedding • From the perspective of individuals (couples): • ①Help to reduce divorce • ②Money saved can create a better life. • From the perspective of the government (society): • Help to restrain the houses’ prices.

17. ① Help to reduce divorce • Reduce couple’s especially the husband’s financial pressure and promote the equality between male and female. • Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China: • Article 2 A marriage system based on freedom, monogamy and equality between man and woman shall be implemented. • 24% of couple divorce because of financial problem. Over 40% divorce for conflicts between husband and wife, in which 70% because of inequality of family status. • Traditionally, the man is expected to pay for the house, the woman brings furniture and kitchenware as part of her dowry. • Karl Marx : • Economic foundation determines superstructure.

18. ②Money saved can create a better life. • Naked (half-naked) wedding ≠ No money • A survey made by China Academy of Social Sciences (2005): • Feeding one child from his birth to 18 years old costs 490 thousand on average in Shanghai.

19. From the perspective of the government (society): • Help to restrain the houses’ prices. • Ministry of Civil Affairs (2010): • About 10 million couples register for marriage per year.

20. Disadvantages of naked wedding • From the perspective of individuals (couples): • ①Lead to increase divorce rate • ②It makes women feel lack of sense of security. • From the perspective of government (society): • ②It goes against Chinese traditional social norms.

21. ①Lead to increase divorce rate • Naked wedding and flash marriage always exist at the same time. • Flash marriage refers to people who get married within a short time of getting to know each other. Many young people believe in "love upon first sight" and don't want to waste time learning about each other more thoroughly. Hasty decisions often lead to problems. Many flash marriages end in "flash divorces" as they find they don't want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. • China's urban youth love and marriage behavior investigation (2007): • 65% of flash marriages end in flash divorces.

22. It makes women feel lack of sense of security. • Chu Huang, a secretary in Shanghai : • "I will doubt a man's sincerity if he asks for a girl's hand in marriage without a ring or a wedding ceremony. If he really wants to marry her, he should get ready for this. Saving money is not an excuse.“ • Time bomb

23. It goes against Chinese traditional social norms. • Traditionally, a couple are expected to have a stable material base before getting married. While the man is expected to pay for the house, the woman brings furniture and kitchenware as part of her dowry. • Obviously, naked wedding goes against it.

24. Thank you!