Marriages no longer made in heaven

One of the highlights of this year's Singles' Day was parents acting as proxies for their too-busy-to-attend children at the matchmaking events. This reflected the anxiousness of Chinese parents whose children have crossed the traditional age of marriage to find a life partner for them. Perhaps the lack of social security is to blame for the situation.

The marriage of many of the parents who today are looking for life partners for their children were arranged by the organizations they worked for. The established practice then was for "organizations" to take care of the needs of their workers. Things are radically different today. Every family has to pay for its needs, from food, housing and education to medical cost and retirement benefits. As a result, marriage is not just the traditional culmination of love; it involves a lot of economic calculations.

Given the absence of a sound medical insurance system in China, a deadly illness can easily drain a family's years of savings. And single children that most marriage-age people are could find it difficult to be the family's breadwinner as well as support two aging parents without the help of a partner.