What is the state of intimate romantic relationships and marriage in urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan? Since the 1980s, many conventional expectations have been abandoned following the passage of no fault divorce laws, falling rates of childbearing within marriage, and increased tolerance for non-marital and non-heterosexual intimate relationships. Tracing how the marital “rules of the game” have changed across the region with the uneven retreat of state supervision and control, Wives, Husbands, and Lovers challenges the long-standing assumptions that marriage is the universally preferred status for all men and women in Chinese societies, that extramarital sexuality is incompatible with marriage, or that marriage necessarily unites a man and a woman. Read in dialogue, the chapters compellingly illustrate a new range of potential futures for marriage, sexuality, and family.

作者簡介

Deborah S. Davis

　　Deborah S. Davis is Professor of Sociology at Yale. Davis is the author of many articles and books, including Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China (2008) and Long Lives: Chinese Elderly and the Communist Revolution (1991).

Sara L. Friedman

　　Sara L. Friedman is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Indiana University. Friedman is the author of Intimate Politics: Marriage, the Market, and State Power in Southeastern China (2006).