Chinese photographer looks at child marriage across rural China
The photographer Muyi Xiao documented cases of child brides and grooms in rural China. These marriages have shaken Chinese society, where many cannot believe that such young teenagers are really in love.
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Married at 13
One girl was barely a teenager when she married her 18-year-old husband, just three days after meeting him. The 13-year-old was visiting his family during the Spring Festival when he insisted that she stay and become his wife.
She knew nothing about birth control. She was soon pregnant and dropped out of school, a fate shared by a growing number of child brides in rural China.
She lives in her husband's parents' home on top of a mountain in a small village. His parents work more than 1,000 miles away in Anhui province, so the young couple are alone at home. The money the parents send back every month is the couple's only income.
Now married, the 13-year-old is bored. She stays at home to help on the farm, and she cooks and does embroidery. Her social life is limited, because her husband is jealous of her friends. According to Muyi, she does not think about the future, and it will be a long time before she is old enough to work in the city.
Law and custom
The legal age of marriage in China is 20 for women and 22 for men. Yet most rural weddings are sealed with a banquet, and the union is registered only when both bride and groom come of age.
Because of China's one-child policy, and because parents preferred boys to girls for years, the gap between the numbers of men and women is stark. Finding a wife is now hard, and experts say teenage boys want to secure a bride quickly for fear of losing her to a rival.
Liu Neng, a sociology professor at Peking University, says marrying at this age is a cultural norm for young people in rural areas, who have little else to do once they reach puberty.
According to Muyi Xiao, girls are also keen to marry early. They fear that if they do not settle down fast enough, their parents will arrange a marriage to a man of the parents' choosing rather than their own.
Children left behind
Young parents often have to rely on their own parents to support their new family. Besides the obvious difficulties of marrying and giving birth so young, the effect on children "left behind" when their parents move to cities for work is still unknown.
After the birth, couples are often forced to move away to earn money. The hours and housing there are unsuitable for a newborn, so they leave the baby with its grandparents in the village.
A second couple
A 16-year-old girl and her 17-year-old husband met a year ago, when he came back 860 miles from working in Guangdong province. They dated for three months before they married. She had left school in 5th grade because she could not afford to stay.
The family's income now depends on the baby's grandfather, and the young husband's mother is the main carer. According to Muyi, the teenage couple enjoy watching cartoons: the young mother's favourite is "Boonie Bears", and the 17-year-old father's is "Seven Dragon Balls".