Twenty-two couples have a group wedding without a bride price in Shangqiu, Central China's Henan Province in September, 2018. Photo: VCG

Many grassroots officials and governments vow to guide residents across China in changing extravagant weddings and luxury feasts for funerals as China begins curbing outdated conventions in rural areas. Officials have called for policies to fit into local conditions and to avoid a "one size fits all" policy.

Eleven ministries and departments, including China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs jointly released a guideline on pushing for changes of outdated conventions and deeds in rural areas within three to five years, according to a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council on October 29.

The guideline lists the general requirements for the efforts and expounds on major measures, including making sure primary-level Party organizations in rural areas fulfill their duties in guiding residents to change outdated conventions. 

Uncivilized customs

Many villagers in China's rural areas have long been burdened by various cumbersome and costly customs, such as paying large sums of money for bride prices, holding funerary rites with hired strippers and luxury feasts. Villagers struggle, but participate to maintain their social standing, or risk losing mianzi - loosely translated to "face" in English, analysts said. 

Bride prices, a traditional prerequisite for marriage, are increasingly becoming a miserable burden for families in rural areas across China as it has spiked sharply in recent years. 

The groom's parents usually give money to their in-laws-to-be, either to secure a happy marriage or to display the family's wealth to others. In recent years, expectations for betrothal money have annually increased, imposing a huge financial burden on the groom's family, Xu Youlin, an official from the Shangrao government in East China's Jiangxi Province, told the Global Times.

"The price ranges often from 180,000 yuan($25,572) to 280,000 yuan although the average rural family with an annual per capita income of just over 10,000 yuan," said Xu, noting that the man's family could not afford it, so they had to borrow money.

Feasts for weddings and funerals also cost a family a lot, especially when residents in rural areas make a competition in the extravagance.  

In addition to bride prices and banquets, other events, such as hiring strippers when holding funerary rites, are widely regarded as bad behavior.

Many villagers are not willing to follow such practices, but they find it difficult to make a change due to pressure from others. Some outdated customs are against the traditional virtues of the Chinese society, Zhu Wei, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.

"These costly customs have become huge burdens for many rural residents and they also made bad social influence," Han Jun, vice-minister of agriculture and rural affair, said on the press conference on October 29. 

The efforts on changing outdated conventions should also fully respect local customs throughout the country and take the preferences of the people into consideration while avoiding compulsive or rigid measures in the process, said Han.

"I don't think all the old rural customs are trash. Some have an inheritance of local civilization. Rather than simply decrying them, it is more important for the authorities to provide rural people with finer cultural products," said a public servant surnamed Liu in Haikou, South China's Hainan Province.
Newspaper headline: Changing outdated customs