Shim-pua marriage

A Shim-pua marriage certificate from Ming dynasty (1588)

Tongyangxi (Chinese: 童養媳; pinyin: tóngyǎngxí), also known as Shim-pua marriage in Taiwanese (Chinese: 新婦仔; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: sin-pū-á or sim-pū-á), was a tradition of arranged marriage dating back to pre-modern China, in which a poor family would sell a pre-adolescent daughter to a richer family as a servant. In exchange, the girl would be married into the adopted family when both children reach puberty. The girl acts both as a daughter-in-law to the adoptive family's son and also as free labour. The girl was usually a few years older than the male child. Due to the lower-class status of the girls, discrimination was often present, and slavery-like treatment was common.

A direct translation of "shim-pua" is simply "little daughter-in-law", while "tongyangxi" means "child daughter-in-law."

These marriages were often unsuccessful. This has been explained as a demonstration of the Westermarck effect.

In China, the practice was outlawed by the Communist Party of China after they seized power in 1949.

In Taiwan, shim-pua marriage fell out of practice in the 1970s due to increased wealth resulting from Taiwan's economic success, making such arrangements unnecessary.

Related concepts

Zhaozhui (Chinese: 招贅; pinyin: zhāozhùi or Chinese: 招婿 or 招翁; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: chio-sài or chio-ang) is a related custom by which a wealthy family that lacks an heir might take in a boy child, although such marriages were not restricted to children.^[1] Since these marriages required the husband entering the wife's household (contrary to traditional Chinese norms), they were relegated to a lower social status.^[1] During the Qing dynasty, these marriages became increasingly common to maintain inheritance bloodlines.^[1] The boy would take on the familial name of his new family, and typically would marry the family's daughter.

See also

• Forced marriage
• Child marriage
• Slavery

References