Many women won't marry a man who doesn't own a home. This recent shift, along with soaring real estate prices, has created a woefully frustrated class of bachelors.

free888 · 2012-03-11T17:22:19+00:00

Sounds like dodging a bullet to me.

2012-03-12T01:18:28+00:00

He acknowledges he must begin saving money for an apartment, but he resents being judged by his inability to purchase property. He would rather have a woman love him for his charm than for the roof he puts over her head.

Feminists, when we say "men are financially objectified" - that is what we mean.

primaloath · 2012-03-11T22:17:21+00:00

And people downvoted my posts on hypergamy...

kronox · 2012-03-11T18:09:41+00:00

Frustrated bachelors? I seriously doubt that. You couldn't pay me enough to ever get married.

Lawtonfogle · 2012-03-11T21:49:47+00:00

The real culprit is the huge number of aborted female babies.

With only one or two children allowed per couple and a huge cultural push toward having a male first child millions of female fetuses have been aborted. The result is many more Chinese males than females. This allows females to be very choosy and forces males to compete much more.

The result is blatantly and strongly sexist.

curious67 · 2012-03-11T19:20:05+00:00

Women want a man with a home, so later at divorce time she can take his home away with her.

Certainly so in Brazil, probably in the US.

I believe that China put an end to this gold digging and lets people keep their own property after divorce.

MRMRising · 2012-03-11T21:19:47+00:00

"A man is not a man if he doesn't own a house," said Chen Xiaomin, director of the Women's Studies Center at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.

OK, they're fucked.

neurorex · 2012-03-12T00:59:14+00:00

I would like to mention that while you're still paying the bank loan for the house, or the mortgage, you don't own the house.

To those ladies, good luck finding a man that has paid off his house before his 40's or so. And once you find one, you might find out the man in question is not interested in a material bitch.

CedMon · 2012-03-11T17:20:13+00:00

"A man is not a man if he doesn't own a house," said Chen Xiaomin, director of the Women's Studies Center at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. "Marriage is becoming more and more materialistic. This is a huge change in Chinese society. No matter how confident a woman is, she will lose face if her boyfriend or husband doesn't have a house."

Who would say these obviously sexist things?

director of the Women's Studies Center at the Shanghai University

Ohhhhhh, I get it. Equality in the workplace but refusing to help pay for living expenses.

Fang Jing is trying to hold on to his relationship. The 29-year-old has been trying to persuade his girlfriend to share in the $250,000 cost of a Shanghai apartment so that they can wed next year.

scpg02 · 2012-03-11T18:40:51+00:00

I have a friend who married a Chinese woman. He says marriage for Chinese women is much more of business contract than love thing. Looking at his marriage I believe him.

BrutusBeefcake · 2012-03-11T17:41:00+00:00

American men are checking out of the housing market to. Like marriage 2.0, it's just a bad deal and a huge risk if a house can be swiped from you on a judges whim. A confirmed bachelor does not need to be chained to a big house.

chavelah · 2012-03-11T19:34:09+00:00

In the 19th century, this was the prime criterion for marriage in America as well. People would stay engaged for years until they could afford to establish their own home.

The big difference I see is that Chinese men are now expected to be OWNERS in very expensive urban markets, whereas American men were just expected to be able to make rent. I don't know what the motivation is there. Maybe they worry that staying home with babies will lead to the loss of a rental, whereas an owned apartment can't be repossessed?

TerriChris · 2012-03-11T17:58:00+00:00

"A man is not a man if he doesn't own a house," said Chen Xiaomin, director of the Women's Studies Center at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. "No matter how confident a woman is, she will lose face if her boyfriend or husband doesn't have a house."

Many wonder why MRAs blame feminists. Evidence is how Ms Xiaomin, a leader at a University's Women's Studies Department, frames the woman as the victim.

siliconjack · 2012-03-11T20:10:12+00:00

In the U.S. we hide behind ideas of love and soulmates; in reality women here are just as pragmatic, they are just no so "up front" about it in most cases.

2012-03-11T21:02:49+00:00

It's important to note that there is a huge disparity between the young male and female populations in China, as a result of their one-child policy (I'll have to find more recent stats but it's something like 117 males born for every 100 females)... it's no secret that females are much more likely to be aborted than males due to their perceived lesser utility... obviously, this is a bigger problem with poorer families. Simply put, this has created a market where there are more males competing for romantic partners than females, and these younger females are more likely to come from more middle and middle upper class families (which might account for their expectations that this article outlines). I've spoken at length to my Chinese friends about it and there really is a problem with this "frustrated class of bachelors" and its effects are very real on Chinese society.

Sure, it's shallow and sexist for these women to prefer men who are rich and have nice things, but they're simply in a position to do so because they have a greater variety to choose from (not saying that is right, just that it's plain economics). If you want to address this issue, you have to look at how the one-child policy has affected the nation's demographics, putting men and women at a disadvantage, albeit in different ways.

Cheimon · 2012-03-11T22:32:09+00:00

So they want to choose who they marry?

That's fair enough, I wouldn't want to not be able to discriminate the other way around.

SpeakToTheSky · 2012-03-11T22:53:42+00:00

This is due to the demographic imbalance of the genders in China. There are more men than women, therefore the women can be pickier.

At least Chinese divorce laws don't let the woman take hostage of his house upon divorce.

cuteman · 2012-03-12T06:00:24+00:00

There's men still stupid enough to get married?

2012-03-11T20:57:22+00:00

Dude this is China, they have bigger and different gender-equality problems than we can even imagine. You think we got it bad? There are, supposedly, in some areas of china, 130 men for every 100 women. Imagine what would happen if women not only acted as if they were a scarce commodity, but actually WERE? http://news.discovery.com/human/china-birth-rate-single-men.html

glassgurl · 2012-03-11T21:47:43+00:00

Women like this make me ashamed to be a fellow woman. Ugh, when will women shed these stupid ideals.

hardwarequestions · 2012-03-11T17:09:54+00:00

Was very confused for a second there. Before opening the article and seeing it was about china, I thought this was referring to US housing prices...

jerseykid · 2012-03-12T01:16:14+00:00

If thats the foundation for the marriages, can't wait to see what new out of control expectations bring us to next.

Caniid · 2012-03-12T06:12:06+00:00

Where I live, it is nearly impossible to buy housing if you have an average salary job. Of course there is the bank, but if I take a loan it would be like +40 years before I can clear the debt. In my case it´s not the matter of getting married, It´s the matter of having a place you can call home. I´m currently renting an apartment and it´s just a place to sleep, since I can´t do much with the place to make it feel more like home. The funny thing is that according to statistics we have a lot of empty housing, but no one is willing to drop the prices. So what am I supposed to do?

rmbarnes · 2012-03-12T15:21:08+00:00

I'm willing to bet all the guys actually rich enough to afford property are ruthlessly pumping and dumping girls.

TheGDBatman · 2012-03-12T15:28:35+00:00

Yeah, big loss there.

Rozeline · 2012-03-12T19:48:13+00:00

Why would a single person buy a house? One person doesn't need a whole house to themselves. I mean, it seems like that's just wasting a bunch of money and space you don't really need.

ThePigman · 2012-03-11T23:11:40+00:00

Frustrated why? Because their chances of becoming some woman's slave have been drastically reduced? Such men are either fools or masochists.

Therealsebastiandior · 2012-03-11T19:03:53+00:00

You know, i love this subreddit, but this has always been the case. In a lot of ancient cultures, you just couldn't get a woman until you built her a hut or house or whatever you want to call it. I think that's more human nature than nurture. I don't have such a big problem with that mindset. Women are creatures of security. I make this post with an open mind and heart.

TheTruthHurtsU · 2012-03-11T21:52:12+00:00

Kinda why folks protested in Syria.

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