Why Do Chinese Parents View Marriages So Differently Based On The Gender Of Their Child?

At Chinese weddings that I have attended, I witness another insightful contradiction. If the daughter is to be married, her parents typically appear torn—relieved, anxious, and emotional all at once. But if the son is to be wed, his parents typically radiate pride, fulfillment, and even triumph. Why should the same milestone provoke the same parent differently? In my eyes, that variation is the product of patriarchy's intense impact upon Chinese kinship culture: daughters' marriages are seen through the lens of liberation and exchange, while sons' marriages are imagined as growth and patrimony.

What Underlies These Attitudes?

Its origin can be found in the patrilineal system of Chinese society. Daughters for decades were seen as "temporary" members of their families of origin whom they were to be "married off" from. Their brothers, by contrast, were seen as bearers of the patriarchy, responsible for carrying on the family line, property, and social standing.The marriage institution itself has for centuries had transactional connotations. Dowries, bride prices, and negotiations of residence and property transform what could otherwise be a romantic union into an exchange of families. Parents raising daughters may even be prone to assume, without deliberate decision, a "daughter-as-dowry" frame of mind: inculcating obedience, modesty, and servitude in preparation for being another man's daughter-in-law. Parents raising sons, by way of comparison, tend to invest fully, treating them as potential patriarchs to assume power and responsibility.

Why Do Parents Accept It?

From the point of view of many families, such attitudes become understandable in the context of culture. For the parents of girls, marriage is at the same time relief from the long-term duty and the possibility of gaining financial or social advantage by arranging for dowry. The "release" of the girl is sometimes described as fulfilling the parental duty. For fathers of sons, marriage is the moment of jubilation as it is seen to be growth and not loss. Their investment of emotion and money seems to be yielding results as their son establishes his own home. To them, it is not the moment of departure from lineage through marriage but rather passing of authority to ensure the future of the family.

Critiques of This Divide

But these divergent attitudes betray the real issue: patriarchy's buyer-seller mentality. The marriage of a daughter is viewed as selling her off, that of a son as buying him out. The imbalance sustains inequality by treating women as objects and exalting male ascendancy. Both sexes are harmed by the transactional model. Women are seen as objects whose worth is connected to dowries, appearance, or suitor potential. Men are under strict duties to provide, control, and extend the line. What could be parity of spouses is rather another instrument to reproduce the power structure. 

Further, it blocks real emotional bonding. If parents view daughters as objects to be released and sons as wealth to be invested in, they blur the distinctness of either. The consequence is not only differential treatment but compounding of patriarchal tendencies in harming family relationships themselves.

Conclusion

My point is not that mothers of daughters and mothers of sons do not feel love. But the language for that love is filtered through patriarchal concepts of exchange, descent, and duty. To move toward equality, language and expectation must change. As long as we speak of "marrying off" daughters and “bringing home" daughters-in-law, we remain in patriarchy's marketplace. True progress would be that parents celebrate daughters and sons alike—not as objects of exchange or kings to be put upon thrones, but as human beings creating lives of their own. That alone will make weddings stop being platforms of liberation and possession, and become rituals of actual union.

Written by: Jiaqi Zhang