Is marriage really the economic base that determines the superstructure?

Recently I saw a piece of news that in the past few years in the three northeastern provinces, 6 out of every 10 couples who registered for marriage registered for divorce, and the divorce rate ranked among the top three in the country. After hearing this news, I quickly went to ask my friends in the Northeast, are people there busy getting divorced? Regarding this issue, my Northeastern friends laughed and said nothing. When mentioning the Northeast in the past few years, they have almost never been there. However, in some media reports and the narratives of Northeastern friends around me, we can hear about the Northeast. general situation.

The transformation of old industries has encountered bottlenecks, the economy has declined, and a large number of people have emigrated. Many small and medium-sized cities in the Northeast that were prosperous a decade or two ago are now basically abandoned cities. For example, local housing prices are as low as cabbage prices today. Many young people have fled the Northeast and chosen to go to work in more economically developed coastal areas, or after studying abroad, they are no longer willing to return to their hometowns to work or live. . With the inability to retain outstanding people and the continuous exodus of young people, coupled with the problems encountered in the economic structural transformation, revitalizing Northeast China has increasingly become a slogan. Against this background, people's marriage choices have also seen a clear shift.

Marx said that the economic base determines the superstructure, so is the declining economic situation in the Northeast the main reason for the increase in divorce rates? Using Marx's theory, how should we understand this phenomenon? Is this phenomenon a special case in Northeast China? Let’s first take a look at what Marx’s theory is about? In the preface to his book Critique of Political Economy in 1859, Marx clearly put forward the theory that the economic base determines the superstructure. Under the background of today's Northeast, it can once again reflect the wisdom and vision of Marx more than 150 years ago. The economic base determines the superstructure. I believe you have heard this theory more or less.

Marx clearly pointed out the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure. The economy represents the material base, and the superstructure represents the spiritual level. He believes that material determines spirit, and without material as a guarantee, one is not qualified to talk about spirit. The economic base determines the superstructure and reacts on the economic base. To use Marx's original words, people have certain inevitable relations in the social production in which they live, independent of their will, that is, production relations that are suitable for a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The relationship between these production relations The sum total constitutes the economic structure of society, that is, there is a legal and political superstructure built on top of it, and there is a realistic basis for a certain form of social consciousness to adapt to it.

Marx’s original words are a bit convoluted, but his general meaning is that the level of economic development of a country or a region determines the country’s politics, culture, spiritual outlook, etc. In other words, the amount of money and the concept of money determine the development direction of society or region's concepts and culture. In marriage, the financial foundation is an extremely important factor. We can actually understand this from two dimensions, that is, just having sweet love in a marriage cannot make the marriage last.

Besides love, you still need bread. The situation in the three northeastern provinces is the best example. The economic development model represented by the old heavy industry in the Northeast means that there is no way to upgrade the industry in a timely manner and has to face the situation of economic recession with backward production capacity. The economic recession will inevitably lead to more and more people who originally wanted to have a stable life in the system to be forced to fall to the lowest limit of the market. After they were laid off, they lost their source of livelihood, and many Northeastern families' lives became extremely difficult. The so-called poor and humble couples are in decline. The lack of economy will inevitably bring about various family conflicts. The conflicts between husband and wife can easily be amplified. Increased divorce rates are also a potential outcome.

On the other hand, more and more people choose to go out of the Northeast and go to the developed areas along the eastern coast for employment. That’s why we have seen the overall economic downturn in the Northeast in recent years. Going out to work will bring difficulties to marriages and families. There are many unstable factors. Many people go out to work soon after getting married, and the foundation of the relationship between husband and wife is not strong. The lack of real-time emotional communication between the two people in two places for a long time will easily lead to divorce. The second reason for the increase in divorce rate is also closely related to economic factors. The economic situation of traveling has improved, and women have become more independent, and they can independently decide their own lives.

A report released by the Civil Affairs Bureau in 2018 said that according to data from the Supreme People's Court, more than 70% of the plaintiffs in divorce cases are women.

Today's Chinese couples are no longer as forbearing as their elders when dealing with marital conflicts, especially women. In the past, many women were unwilling to file for divorce even if they were dissatisfied with their marriages. Most people choose to accept it, because women in the past lacked economic independence. Even if they really get rid of patriarchy and husband's power, they still cannot gain a foothold in society. However, with the development of the economy, women go out to work and have their own careers. After getting paid, they achieve economic independence, and their awareness of self-independence is constantly awakened. Then if they are not satisfied with the status quo of their marriage at this time, they will be more daring to say no. Today, with the change in traditional concepts, women who do not enter marriage are no longer regarded as failures or tragic.

Many people realize that marriage is not a rule of life that everyone must abide by. More and more women are beginning to want to achieve a career, begin to face their self-worth and personal development, and no longer To put it more directly, sacrifice yourself to the boring married life of ten years as before. Compared to the past, many people now listen more to their inner voices when it comes to relationships, rather than being influenced by traditional values ??and the ideas of their elders. Modern women's autonomy and freedom have improved a lot when it comes to staying or leaving a marriage. In recent years, women have continued to gain the right to economic independence and gradually awakened their sense of independence.

They realize that their husbands are no longer the only ones to rely on in their lives. They can choose work and other rich lives to gain satisfaction from a rich life. Another point is that more and more women are beginning to enjoy diversified social relationships instead of locking themselves at home and living a life of raising children. For example, they can enjoy a life of making progress with outstanding people of the same sex, encouraging each other. For them, friendship is not a substitute for love, it can guide and give each other strength. In the American TV series "Sex and the City", we will meet 4 women with different characteristics. They are realizing their career and love ideals. At the same time, they also have a very strong friendship and can cheer each other up when encountering such setbacks. .

For them, love and marriage are more of a content to explore themselves, rather than the whole life. So when did women really start to step out of the family and reflect on the limitations of the marriage system on their lives? After looking at the changes in the past few years, let’s talk about how women fought for their rights in history? And how it affects all aspects of culture and social life. Here I would like to recommend a book called "The Age of Single Women" to everyone. The author's name is Rebecca Traister. ] Rebecca is a very famous journalist in the United States. In this book, he focused on the group of single women and selected the life experiences of about 30 American women from nearly a hundred original interviews. He found that in this era, women are more independent than ever in terms of ideological and economic relations between the sexes. , they also have the ability to choose to be single and no longer need to rely on marriage to improve their financial situation as before.

Before the 19th century, almost no women in the United States could find a job with equal pay as their partner. For most women, apart from marriage, there is no other way for them to obtain a stable financial source and social status. There are only a few professions that unmarried women can engage in, and the wages are very meager. They can only work in some professions, such as midwifery, tailoring, nursing, housekeeping, and teaching. By the 19th century, more and more women were engaged in pursuing careers and learning knowledge. Louisa was the most famous female writer in the United States in the 19th century. Her most famous novel is "Little Women", which you may have read. This book is her semi-autobiographical family ethics novel. The story takes place during the American Civil War. It tells the story of how four sisters experienced love to pursue their ideals and different belongings.

Whether in the novel or in real life, the author has always paid great attention to women's consciousness, and has actively advocated women's independence and broken up marriages with family members. In order to supplement her family income, the author Louisa not only worked as a teacher, nurse, seamstress and other professions, she also continued to write diligently. It can be said that she was one of the few women in the 19th century to achieve financial independence. By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the marriage rate of American women reached an all-time low.

At that time, there was a huge political and social turmoil in the United States. Many young women were forced to make a living and ran to big cities to look for job opportunities. Women's career types also quickly began to diversify and modernize.

For example, call resources, telephones, operators, secretaries, workers, etc. It is said that the economic base determines the superstructure. When the new economic situation has greatly changed, more women have developed a sense of self-resistance, hoping to win more rights and interests for themselves, including political power, etc. Therefore, the first labor movement with executive leadership and participation was born in that era. It can be said that women changed their own economic situation and achieved victory through a series of struggles, permanently changing the country of the United States. Gender politics. Beginning in the 1921s, female citizens gained the right to vote for the first time in American history.

After a century of hard work, women’s independent spirit has become stronger and stronger. The movement launched by American women to fight for their rights has completely changed the destiny of the country. By the 2012 U.S. election, the number of unmarried female voters accounted for 23% of all voters. The large number of unmarried female voters can be said to have profoundly affected the composition of the American electorate. At that time, Obama was deeply aware of the importance of female voters in order to win re-election as president. In order to win favor and support, he also specially proposed a series of policies that were beneficial to women, which played an important role in his final victory in swing states. American women are indeed subverting everything, affecting the distribution of economic, political and gender rights between the sexes. A large number of American women are rewriting the definition of the traditional family, and are also greatly affecting the formulation of social policies.

They proved to the world that they have the power to change America. From a social perspective, over the past 100 years, more and more women have no longer limited themselves to the family space. They have more and more autonomy and voice in marriage and society. and decision-making power. Whether you actively choose to be single, or end an unsatisfactory marriage and return to being single, from a personal perspective, it is the awakening of independent consciousness. From the perspective of the entire social environment, it is an inevitable product of social and economic development. As early as more than 100 years ago, Engels predicted that human family forms would change along with changes in production methods.

In China, the marriage rate has not been seen declining year by year, but the divorce rate has generally increased. This has become a trend. The improvement of women's personal economic conditions, changes in the overall environment, and the impact on traditional concepts have all had an important impact on the modern marriage system, bringing more thinking and questioning about the nature of marriage to our society. Today, with the rapid development of the market economy, people's educational level has also been greatly improved. There is also a new understanding of marriage, and the traditional view of marriage has naturally been greatly impacted, or even completely subverted. It can be said that we have ushered in a new era of marriage and love. What does such an era look like?

We might as well think carefully about the examples around us. In the 1970s and 1980s, and even in the early 1990s, there were very few divorced people around. One of the important reasons is that at that time, people generally had low incomes and relatively low spending power. Once they became single, they would face great financial pressure in raising children. So for single mothers at that time, many people might remarry because of heavy financial burden rather than emotional attraction. Today's women are very different. As their incomes increase, so do their choices about their personal lives. It can be said that today's generation of young Chinese women are practicing their own views on marriage and love.

Today we used Marx’s theory that the economic base determines the superstructure to discuss the role of the economy in marriage. The economy awakens women's self-awareness, changes marriage and major life choices, and how the economy affects changes in women's social status. What we need to know is that although divorce is something that happens between a couple, from a sociological perspective, it is far from just a personal emotional issue, it is more of a social, economic, political, and cultural issue. A microcosm. When future generations in 30, 5, 10 or even 100 years look back at the emotional issues and marital status we are discussing today, they will definitely be like archeology. From the small world of personal emotions, we can get a glimpse of the grand pattern of changes and development of the entire society.