Wedding Culture in 1930S Shanghai: Consumerism, Ritual, and the Municipality
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Front. Hist. China 2012, 7(1): 61–89 DOI 10.3868/s020-001-012-0005-9 FORUM Charlotte Cowden Wedding Culture in 1930s Shanghai: Consumerism, Ritual, and the Municipality Abstract By the 1930s, a variety of forces were chipping away at the traditional Chinese wedding in urban centers like Shanghai. “New-style” weddings—with a bride in a white wedding dress—took place outside of the home and featured networks of friends, choice of one’s spouse, autonomy from one’s parents, and the promise of happiness and independence. With the publication of wedding portraits and detailed discussions of new-style wedding etiquette and its trappings, women’s magazines further shaped the new-style bride as a consumer and an individual. Early reformers had envisioned the new-style ceremony as a streamlined and affordable alternative to traditional ceremonies, but for most city residents these weddings remained out of reach. After the Nationalist consolidation of power in 1928, Shanghai was deemed a crucial site for the promotion of ritual reform and economic restraint. Weddings were at the crux of this movement, which was buttressed by the Civil Code of 1931 allowing children to legally marry without parental consent. New Life Movement group weddings came next. These ceremonies co-opted urban wedding culture in an attempt to frame the new-style wedding as a ritual of politicized citizenship under the Nationalist government. The tension between the popular, commercial, new-style wedding and the Nationalists’ Spartan political vision, as played out in the market, is examined below. Keywords Shanghai, wedding ceremonies, ritual, modern, Republican Era, Nationalists Introduction First adopted in the early 1900s by returned students, entrepreneurs, and the children of well-traveled politicos, the “new-style” wedding began as a simple alternative to expensive and elaborate wedding ceremonies and was part of a larger impetus to reform and restore the Chinese nation. Defeat in the Charlotte Cowden ( ) Independent Scholar, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA E-mail: [email protected] Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 07:35:26AM via free access 62 Charlotte Cowden Sino-Japanese War (1895), the failed Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, and humiliation at the terms of the Boxer Protocols (1901) in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion exposed China’s weaknesses on an international stage. Many intellectuals—and others—turned to the West in search of education, wealth, and power, and inspiration. Reforms were not only political; they were social in scope, too. Critics including Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei argued that strengthening women’s social standing would strengthen the Chinese nation.1 One way to accomplish this was through reforming marriage practices. This sentiment was echoed in early news reports on the new-style ceremony. In 1907, the women’s magazine Nüzi shijie noted that “new wedding ceremonies are slowly becoming popular and it seems that new families will appear in the near future.”2 New small families, a result of new-style weddings, would create a new China.3 There were several hallmarks to the new-style ceremony. Rather than betrothal divined by a matchmaker, brides and grooms chose their own spouses. Marriage contracts were agreed on by both parents and children and did not include a dowry. Couples married on a day that was convenient, rather than one deemed auspicious. The ceremony, which took place outside of the home, was presided over by a family friend or civic official. It was brief, simple and economical.4 White wedding dresses made a further statement against superstition: the color white was traditionally reserved for funerals. Though foreigners were granted concessions and extraterritoriality in Shanghai after the treaty of Nanjing (1842), new-style weddings—also called “free marriages”—were not solely a result of Western presence in the city.5 Many who married in early ceremonies had worked or studied abroad in England, Japan or the United States and witnessed or participated in ceremonies there.6 Others were compradors or entrepreneurs whose business brought them into contact with foreigners. While missionaries no doubt influenced those within a self-selecting group who attended church services, generally, information about 1 See Kang Youwei, Ta T’ung Shu; The One-World Philosophy of K’ang Yu-wei; Shao Xianchong, Jindai Zhongguo de xinshi hunsang, 9; Deng Weizhi, Shanghai hunsu, 57. My thanks to Miss Grace Cheng-Ying Lin for her thoughtful feedback as I was revising this article. 2 “Neiguo jishi,” 93–94. 3 On the small family, see Susan Glosser, Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915–1953. The impact of the new-style wedding on one’s family life is beyond the scope of this paper. 4 The expense of Chinese weddings was commonly recognized as a problem. See Susan Mann, “Grooming a Daughter for Marriage: Brides and Wives in the Mid-Ch’ing Period,” 204–30. 5 For background on Shanghai city history, see Marie-Claire Bergère, translated by Janet Lloyd, Shanghai: China’s Gateway to Modernity. 6 “Neiguo jishi,” 93–94. See also “Social Conversation: A Wedding Invitation,” 1923. Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 07:35:26AM via free access Wedding Culture in 1930s Shanghai 63 the new-style wedding was spread through translated etiquette manuals, newspapers, women’s magazines, and city guidebooks.7 After 1914, new-style weddings—which were widely recognized as clever adaptations of previous ritual practices8—were discussed in guidebooks as a Chinese practice. Church weddings, however, were relegated to a separate section: new-style but also foreign. At this time ritual reform at this time was largely personal—and apolitical—despite the participation of diplomats and government officials in such ceremonies.9 In fact, the new-style wedding, which began before the 1911 Revolution that ended dynastic rule in China, continued to evolve unaffected after the fall of the Qing. In the wake of the May 4th Movement, marriage reform and “free love” became touchstones for New Culture Reformers and urban intellectuals.10 But in the early 1920s, new-style marriage was still more of a goal than a practical reality for most urban youth: it was difficult for young men and women to meet socially, know what qualities to look for in a spouse, and receive parental approval for the match. Indeed, many felt constrained by stubborn social norms. In a 1923 issue of the women’s magazine Funü zazhi dedicated to ruminations on an “Ideal Spouse” one young man wrote: “I think—although other reasons are given—the sorrows of today’s youth, our low spirits, are mainly because of the marriage problem. There are those who kill themselves or fall into a terrible state due to an unsatisfying marriage. I have seen this a lot.”11 He continued: “We have accepted thousands of years of Confucian influence. Now, although it has faced an assault, its influence is still great and many young people have an attitude where they keep quiet out of fear, going on as they would before. But you cannot blame them... they have been educated in Confucian ways since youth.” Even if someone wanted to marry in a new-style wedding there was no conventional new-style ceremony for youth to follow, where according to one observer: “Although the state system has changed since the establishment of the 7 See, for example: Liu Shixun, Taixi lisu xinbian zhiyi hunyin tan, riyong baojian, and the women’s magazine Funü shibao. 8 “Wenming jiehun de shiyi.” 9 This includes the weddings of Zhu Qiqian’s daughters, in 1914 and 1915. At this time, Zhu was acting cabinet minister for the Bureau of Internal Affairs. Tang Shaoyi, first prime minister of the Republic also married in a new-style ceremony, as did his daughter, who wed Wellington Koo. See “Zhang Yiwu jun yu Zhu? ru nüshi heying,” “Yan Nanzhang jun yu Zhu Songjun nüshi xinhun shying,” and “Tang Shaoyi jun yu Wu Weiqiao nüshi jiehun sheying” respectively. 10 See Haiyan Lee, Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China 1900–1950. 11 See “Wo zhi lixiang de pei’ou,” 58, 95. Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 07:35:26AM via free access 64 Charlotte Cowden Republic, marriage etiquette has not been enforced… the more ceremonies that come out the stranger they are, where there is almost no set standard.”12 Politicians had not been turning a blind eye to changing wedding ceremonies, but had for some time been trying link them to party politics: in the early 1910s the Provisional Republican Government had drafted its own wedding rites incorporating national and party flags, and Sun Yat-sen’s portrait into what had previously been a family ritual.13 While those early drafts were not enacted due to lack of government funding they did eventually lead to a more packaged, comprehensive new-style ceremony: Chiang Kai-shek’s 1927 wedding to Soong Mei-ling in Shanghai on December 1, 1927. This was a watershed moment for the new-style wedding. Prior to the wedding Chiang shared his views on marriage and divorce in the newspaper Shenbao. China’s family system, Chiang wrote, was based not on mutual happiness but rather on one’s ability to endure his or her spouse. Chiang detailed his frustrations with his previous wife, an arranged marriage that had simmered for ten years to the point where “hearing her footsteps and seeing her shadow caused agitation.”14 This strained relationship had spread, influencing his interactions with his mother. Furthermore, Chiang claimed, social stigma led men to stay in unhappy marriages and seek concubines rather than divorcing their wives—a practice he found deplorable. Others of his generation—torn between Western education, new-style ideals, and Confucian morals that had shaped their traditional upbringing—faced similar difficulties as they straddled two worlds.