Wei Huan (魏欢) was a 28-year-old history teacher at a village high school in Lushan County (鲁山镇), in rural Henan Province in central China.
She grew up in the village. With a population of just 10,000, many villagers there run cotton quilt businesses, including Wei Huan’s parents.
In 2015, Wei moved away from Lushan to attend Henan University of Science and Technology in Luoyang (洛阳), a city of seven million. She lived and worked there after graduating, and moved back to her village in Lushan in 2022 to take on her teaching role.
Popular with students, Wei Huan was described as tall, beautiful, and having an infectious smile and energy about her.
On December 10 news broke that Wei Huan had taken her own life by jumping from a first floor window into the courtyard below.
It was the day before her wedding.
Before she took her own life, Wei shared in a social media post this message:
“I clearly recognise that my greatest value lies in getting married. Seven years, starting from graduation, I resisted for seven years. If you add four years of university, that’s 11 years in total. But I failed. Even though I argued, I made a scene, I went crazy, I took a knife and slashed at him, I still had to go on blind dates and get married. Yes, that’s right, I’m weak and meek, I can’t make up my mind, so I fulfilled my duty. I went on blind dates to get myself a husband.
Parents who emotionally blackmail me into marriage, relatives who accuse me of being a bad daughter, and a partner who is entitled and disrespectful. Frankly speaking, he’s a perfect match for parents who only tell you to suck it up. So, I got married. I completed the greatest task of my life. You see, I even got money — money I could never have got no matter what I did. But now I have it just by obediently getting married...
I’m a little scared, coz after all I’m about to die. The courtyard belonging to the first-floor neighbor is right beneath the window.
I’m very sorry, but this is the only opportunity I have.”
我清楚地认识到我自己最大的价值就是结婚，七年，从毕业开始，我对抗了七年,加上大学四年，11年，我失败了，我吵，我闹，我发疯，我拿刀砍他，都要相亲，都要结婚，嗯，对，我懦弱我不行，我下不定决心，所以我听话，我相亲结婚。
以死相逼都必须要结婚的父母，指责不孝的亲戚，有一说一，蹬鼻子上脸只会气人的对象和只会让你忍的父母真是绝配。所以我结婚了，我完成了我这辈子最大的任务，你看我还得到了钱，以前我无论如何都得不到的钱，现在只要老实去结婚都有了……
我有点害怕，毕竟要死了，窗户下边是一楼的院子，很抱歉，我只能找到这个机会。
Related
According to friends of Wei’s interviewed in the media, she’d been unhappy for some time, regularly clashing with her mother who had been “nagging her about marriage” (催婚) constantly for more than 10 years.
The day before she killed herself, Wei announced in a WeChat group that she was cancelling the wedding. But she was forced to continue with the plan by a relative, and her mother who told her to “suck it up” (忍一忍).
On the day she died, Wei was attending a traditional family gathering hosted in her new marital home, to celebrate the wedding. She seemed withdrawn and upset. As her parents and family were handing out cigarettes and drinking during the meal, Wei saw her opportunity. She slipped out of the banquet, and made her way upstairs.
Within minutes the proceedings were brought to an abrupt and shocking end, as Wei’s body lay in the courtyard next door, motionless.
The pressures described in Wei’s final message reflect how many women in China feel as they near their late 20’s, under a constant onslaught of “marriage nagging” (催婚) from parents and reletives, who accuse them of being “unfilial” (不孝) for not wanting to marry.
Wei Huan’s suicide sparked intense discussion on social media and in the media. Among the many reasons behind marriage nagging shared by women interviewed who’ve experienced similar pressures from their families, three stood out:
The first is face. In villages in rural parts of China, often a small number of extended families may compete fiercely over land and social status. As China has urbanised in the last few decades, this competition has shifted from tussles over land to competing over material wealth, and their children’s success in marriage. So a rural woman in her twenties who isn’t married is an embarrassment who “stands out uncomfortably” (扎眼). For the parents, this is seen as them being “incompetent” (父母能力不行).
The second reason is a generational disconnect. Unlike their parents’ generation, post-90s and post-00s generations like Wei Huan have grown up amid rapid social change and modernisation. Educated young women who have experienced moving to bigger cities to work are economically more independent, and have more choice as to whether they want to marry or not. And many choose not to.
The third reason is financial. In poorer parts of China, the “betrothal gift” (彩礼) — money the groom’s family gives to the bride’s family to “buy” the wife — can be significant for a lower income family. In parts of rural China, at engagement the bride’s parents will typically receive around 66,000 yuan ($9,000), with another 88,000 yuan ($12,000) given at the wedding. Many parents collect the gift money as early as possible, so if the marriage falls apart, breaking up doesn’t result in too much financial loss.
A combination of these factors, and many other traditional, cultural, and economic reasons, means that parents and reletives of millions of young women across China are consistently nagging them to get married, even today.
The tragedy of Wei Huan is a shocking reminder of just how intense these social pressures can be.
So, that’s what we’re exploring this week.
Favourite Five
1. 催婚 cuī hūn
push someone to get married, marriage nagging
生长于县乡，走出到城市读书又回到县城工作，随后面对扑面而来的催婚压力，这是许多县城女性正面临的境遇 - Born in the country and educated in the city, many women return to their small-town roots only to be hit with an onslaught of marriage nagging, which has become the defining struggle for them. [1]
Related:
逼迫 bī pò – to force, to compel
逼婚 bī hūn – to pressure someone into marriage
2. 剩女 shèng nǚ
leftover woman (above a certain age, e.g. 30), unmarried woman
作为同样饱受催婚之苦的“大龄剩女”，我只希望天堂再无催婚 - As a fellow “old leftover woman” being pestered by marriage nagging, I only hope there’s no such pressure in heaven. [3]
Related:
光棍 guāng gùn – bachelor, single man
3. 懦弱 nuò ruò
cowardly, weak-willed
最后“懦弱”地选择结婚妥协 - In the end, she gave into the pressure and agreed to get married. [1]
4. 以死相逼 yǐ sǐ xiāng bī
to threaten with suicide, to force someone by risking one’s life
从上大学起父母就在催她相亲、结婚，魏欢多次试图反抗，甚至“以死相逼” - Since she started university, Wei Huan’s parents have been relentless about matchmaking and marriage. She fought back time and again, eventually reaching a breaking point where she threatened her own life just to make them stop. [1]
5. 以死明志 yǐ sǐ míng zhì
to die to show determination, suicide to prove a point
有河南女教师新婚当日从婚房7楼一跃而下，以死明“志” - In Henan, a young female teacher jumped from the seventh floor of her new home on her wedding day, using her own death to make a final, desperate statement. [3]
🎧RTM Podcast Preview
This week on the RTM Advanced podcast, our editor, Zoe Qian (who is way more qualified to talk about this topic than I am), shares much more insights about how “marriage nagging” varies across different parts of China.
And the differences between three marriage-related words:
彩礼 cǎi lǐ — bride price / betrothal gifts
份子钱 fèn zi qián — cash gift / red envelope money
嫁妆 jià zhuang — dowry money or valuables given to the bride
Tune in at 7 minutes where she breaks down what they mean and the stories behind them…
Consuming the Conversation
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So, ready to finally get started and wave goodbye to that nagging rusty feeling?
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Consuming the Conversation
Useful words
6. 婚事 hūn shì
marriage
接下来的目标就是早点定下婚事 - The next objective is to have the match finalized as soon as possible. [1]
Related:
早婚 zǎo hūn – early marriage
定亲 dìng qīn – engagement
出嫁 chū jià – (of a woman) to marry out
上嫁 shàng jià – to marry up (into a higher-status family)
领证 lǐng zhèng – to register a marriage (and get the certificate)
适婚年龄 shì hūn nián líng – marriageable age
7. 相亲 xiāng qīn
blind date, arranged date
他们通过亲戚介绍、上相亲网站帮徐妍筛选相亲对象，多的时候每周都安排一场相亲 - Through family connections and dating sites, they screened potential matches for Xu Yan, sometimes arranging as many as one blind date per week. [1]
8. 彩礼 cǎi lǐ
bride price, betrothal gifts
一般聊几个月就会自然过渡到订婚、谈彩礼的流程 - After getting to know each other for a few months, things naturally transition into formal engagement and negotiations over the betrothal gifts. [1]
Related:
份子钱 fèn zi qián - wedding gift in the form of cash
9. 扎眼 zhā yǎn
eye-catching (in an awkward or glaring way), stand out
一个二十多岁不结婚的农村女孩在这里就显得很扎眼 - A rural girl in her twenties who isn’t married really doesn’t fit in here. [1]
Related:
扎心 zhā xīn - piercing to the heart, heartbreaking
10. 决绝 jué jué
resolute, decisive
不懂这孩子怎么会做出这么决绝的举动 - They don’t understand how their daughter could do something so radical. [4]
Three-character phrases
11. 煎熬感 jiān áo gǎn
feeling of torment, agony
那种煎熬感让人无法忍受 - That feeling of torment is unbearable. [2]
Related:
忍受 rěn shòu - to endure, to tolerate
