1、毕业论文文献综述 英语 A Study of Different Attitudes to Marriage of people in China and America Marriage as a human institution exists in all major civilization since the draw of time. People marry for different reasons: passion, stability, responsibility, social benefits, convenience or tradition. From one c
2、ountry to another, it is difficult to generalize or draw definitive conclusions as to why, when, or how people marry, but it is true that social and cultural backgrounds play important roles in peoples understanding of marriage-and marriage tendencies around the world. Firstly, many scholars make th
3、eir studies in marriage from many different aspects. Jing Wenshu has studied the reasons for marriage seriously. In his book to marriage: The Marriage and Family Structure in Traditional China and America (2009), he gathered a great quantity of marriage materials in Western countries and China. In h
4、is opinion, compared with America which has only more than 200 years history, the culture of China seems to be more traditional, taking marriage not only an individual as concern, also a social responsibility. In addition to individual standards, one must live up to family and social expectations. M
5、any couples know each other through their friends and parents introduction. They are introduced for marriage and stability. But it doesnt mean they all do not marry for love. A lot of them do. For many, they choose their life mates because of common interest and sweet temper, but at last, they shoul
6、d be agreed by their parents. Another scholar, Wang Ge published The New Opinions on Marriage in America in this field. He analyzes that Americans pay more attention to their ability of independence, and they have much more freedom. When choosing life mates, Americans tend to place more emphasis on
7、individual choices than on other peoples opinions. They can discuss with their parents, free to choose their school and jobs. When they are 18, they always leave home, working or studying, and they all support by themselves. Due to this kind education of independence, when in college, they have thei
8、r own opinions on politics, society, economics and international situation. Whats more, they also have their own standards to choose their life mates. Boys may invite and call their lovers to have dates. In America, they concern little about lovers family background, educational status and faith, bu
9、t romantic love and character. (1998) Secondly, most adults hope to establish a close and meaningful relationship with another person and make the relationship work both in China and America. The best and most acceptable way is marriage. The breakthrough of theoretical marriage made scholar put more
10、 and more new findings. Paloma Robles is one of the forerunners in this area. Paloma maintains in What is your reason for getting married? (2008) that mate selection is largely a decision made jointly by prospective bride and groom with their strong value on individualism in America. They believe th
11、at marriage is purely private matter, and no one can interfere; at the same time the marriage does not belong to moral issues. Even though absolute freedom of choice is constrained by such factors as social class, religion and race, individuals in contemporary America are relatively free to marry wh
12、omever they please. John Defray and David Olsen made the step further. In their book Challenge for American marriage and family (2002), he analyses that love is a very important part in American peoples marriage. They marry for love, and divorce for unloved. And in America, the number of couples get
13、ting married is falling, while divorce rate is on the rise. For many people, marriage is no longer an option. Many people, in fact, think marriage is outdated. And he also announces that, they may have a couple of years as a law firm associate, and then get married for most of young people in Americ
14、a. They always choose marriage when it makes sense financially. And society is just not like that anymore. Other people believe in open relationships. They hook up with many people at the same time. They believe that is OK, as long as one is honest, from the beginning, about the terms of the relatio
15、nship. This is a different understanding of love. For Chinese, they have traditional ideas of marriage as their older generations. International Marriage Talk (2000) written by Guo Ying gives us an explanation. She explains that most of people agree that they are unwilling to marry a woman who gets
16、higher education. The same to the women, who also think that their husbands should be cleverer than themselves. 87% of inquired college students are strongly against love affairs and 75% emphasize the loyalty to marriage. And in China, family and parents have giant effect on childrens marriage. So m
17、ost of the young people want to marry from 20-25 year old, much earlier than America. Elder Single youth will be excluded by the society. Xu Hongying, Liu Jun and Li Ming in their Chinese love and marriage in 21st century (2003) show that popularity of having sex after marriage in the old age is not
18、 fit nowadays. 85% of college students expressed that they can accept having sex before marriage, emphasizing that they dont have to marry the person whom they have sex with for first time. Thirdly, concerned with divorce, America has a high rate of divorce. Gan Shifeng who has his report “Strong Fa
19、milies around the World” (2001) shows that 43% of couples can not keep their marriage for more than 15 years. As we all know, America is a multicultural country and Americans tend to pursue freedom and self-dependence. Marriage is personal affair, so they have choices for their happiness and do not
20、care about others feelings. But recently, Americans are more responsible to their marriage. Divorce has many negative effects on their life, such as economical issues, raising and children mental problems. The divorced women raise children alone, and divorced men can not start their new martial life
21、. When they lose their jobs, how to support families becomes a tough problem to them. Fourthly, Xie Xiaoliang in his Marriage Equation (2005), Deng Qian and Wanyan Shaoyuan in their Marriage Value Diagnosis of Modern young people in China (2006) all carry out some comparative studies on marriage. Th
22、ey have studied the reasons of this kind of differences. Because of the stress from society and the influence of western culture, couples have less time to communicate with each other, so they find less in common. Scholar Jia Yuxin has stated in his Culture Research (1997) that these marital differe
23、nces due to the cultural differences in China and America. He analyses that they have different definitions on family. Chinese people are educated that everything should be taken collectivity as its main point, so as the marriage. Wu Zongyou indicates in his Chinese Modern Marriage (2009) that marri
24、age is related to the benefits of the whole family not own happiness. Concerning about the integrality of family, social reputations and childrens feelings, the couples who have not love each other will try hard to bear and tolerate each other. While in America, they advocate individualism. In their
25、 opinion, everyone is an independent part in the society, so as the family. They always have a nuclear family consisting of a husband, wife, and their children, living in a house or apartment. Grandparents rarely live in the same home with their married sons and daughters, and uncles and aunts most
26、never do. What more, it is not right for them to lose themselves in order to achieve integrality of family. Secondly, people pursue stabilization or change. Chinese people always have a value of stabilization.“和 ”is a very important value in Chinese value. They think that perfect of family is gettin
27、g together with their whole family and never change in their life time. While Americans tend to enjoy changes which are the spiritual powers. They are not afraid of changes and try their best to adapt to them. They dont like obeying the traditional rules, but breaking through the original life. And
28、they also believe that happiness is in the next stop. From the review, we can find that so many theories have been applied to the analysis of different attitudes on marriage in China and America by the scholars at abroad and at home. Their own researches of different opinions on marriage in China or
29、 America are hardly to find up to now. As the world tends to be universal, the cultural differences on marriage will be mixed. Thanks to all the forerunners for their sparkling ideas as well as the study already done, I am inspired to work on it and want to have a tentative study on the conceptual d
30、ifference between America and China from analyzing the different attitudes of marriage in China and America. 参考文献 1DeFrain, J. Strong families around the world. J. Journal of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, 1999(09). 2Jing Wenshu. The Marriage and Family Structure in Traditional China an
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