Parental Involvement in Adult Children’s Marriage-Seeking Activities ( Xiangqin ): Discourses and Practices of Marriage and Dating in China

As marriage rates decline across China, parents take an active role in facilitating their child’s marriage-seeking, or xiangqin—introduced dating. This study examines the parental beliefs and gendered discourses that guide such practices. Data were collected from a WeChat group and interviews with 22 participants of unmarried young adults. Analysis was guided by thematic analysis and feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA) to examine ideologies of gender that impact marriage-seeking. WeChat data show how parents were more active than young adults in seeking marriage partners, that most marriage advertisements were for daughters, and that messages were direct and pragmatic. Interview data show how parents negotiated between a traditional discourse that marriage is parent-guided and highly gendered, and a modern counter-discourse that supports free choice marriage decisions, especially for a daughter. Further analysis, however, shows how discourses are gendered: parents were traditional when talking about sons, and modern when talking about daughters.