What do you think?
Rate this book
Arranged Companions: Marriage and Intimacy in Qing China
Although commonly associated with patriarchal oppression, arranged marriages have adapted over the centuries to changing cultural norms and the lived experiences of men and women. In Arranged Companions, historian Weijing Lu chronicles how marital behaviors during the early and High Qing (mid-seventeenth through mid-nineteenth centuries) were informed by rich and complex traditions and mediated by the historical conditions of the period, during which marital affection was celebrated as a basic ingredient of an ideal marriage.
Lu finds public representation and private communication of marital affection in personal records, including poetry, biographies, letters, and memoirs. During this unique historical moment, ideals of marital companionship and love came to fruition while social changes also created new tensions for couples and extended families. Offering surprising revelations about conjugal relations during this time of change, Arranged Companions raises provocative questions about the cultural construction of intimacy and the meaning of a "happy marriage."
Lu finds public representation and private communication of marital affection in personal records, including poetry, biographies, letters, and memoirs. During this unique historical moment, ideals of marital companionship and love came to fruition while social changes also created new tensions for couples and extended families. Offering surprising revelations about conjugal relations during this time of change, Arranged Companions raises provocative questions about the cultural construction of intimacy and the meaning of a "happy marriage."
264 pages, Hardcover
Published July 22, 2021
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 20, 2023
An analysis of marriage and expectations.
All sorts of things. Poetry, written about wives, exchanged between wife and husband during separations, discussions of poetry between them, the way marriages were arranged, whether they might know each other first, how locally, the effect of having to pass the examinations and the poverty before a post, the effects of rising expectations on making marriages that would have been adequate before more miserable, polygamy being basically expected of all well-off men, and all the in-law troubles of China.
All sorts of things. Poetry, written about wives, exchanged between wife and husband during separations, discussions of poetry between them, the way marriages were arranged, whether they might know each other first, how locally, the effect of having to pass the examinations and the poverty before a post, the effects of rising expectations on making marriages that would have been adequate before more miserable, polygamy being basically expected of all well-off men, and all the in-law troubles of China.
Displaying 1 of 1 review
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.