Hello everyone, I am Anthony. Welcome to my channel. Today I want to talk to you about urging marriage.

For many unmarried young Chinese, being urged to get married by parents and relatives during the Chinese New Year, it's an uncomfortable thing, even quite painful.

In the past 2025 Spring Festival, many netizens said relatives and family questioned about one's marital status. Even if you are overseas, they may also be hinted or pressured by their parents over the phone.

Therefore, the Spring Festival is also a high incidence period for family conflicts and psychological problems in China.

Just a few days ago, a netizen told me about his pain of being urged to get married. I think his family situation is very representative.

So today's video, I want to combine his story to talk about why Chinese parents like to urge their children to get married.

If you are interested in today's video, or do you have any topic you want to discuss with me, you can contact my email to make an appointment. So let's get back to our topic today.

First of all, this netizen is 28 years old. During the Spring Festival, he and his father originally planned to visit the graves together to pay respect to their ancestors.

However, on the morning of departure, Dad suddenly became very silent, didn't talk to him, and seemed to be very dissatisfied with him.

This kind of cold violence made him very painful. He understood that this was his father's resentment towards his single status.

During the Chinese New Year, they had many heated arguments because of the pressure to get married. His grandmother also thinks not getting married at this age is a big problem, and told his dad that he could use words to stimulate him.

This family atmosphere made him feel suffocated. Relatively speaking, Mom and grandma are more tolerant of his choices.

Facing the pressure to get married, people tend to attribute it to the following reasons.

First, China’s collectivist culture. For example, this article says: The Chinese believe that they must live like others. Seems "different" means abnormal, unsafe.

When your child reaches marriageable age but is still alone, I heard from my aunts and uncles that "Why haven't your children gotten married yet? No children were born." Mainstream Chinese parents feel anxious and panicky, as if being left out of the group. In order to ease the pressure of public opinion that is not recognized, they pass this anxiety on to their children.

The second explanation for urging marriage is Confucian culture. For example, in traditional Chinese concepts, it doesn't acknowledge true love. The ultimate goal of marriage is to build a family, continuing the family line.

That is what the Book of Rites says: "Will unite the two surnames, the emperor served the ancestral temple, and the following generations." As for whether the two people's spirits are compatible enough, this goes beyond the need to pass on the family line. It's not worth considering too much.

Many Chinese parents do not completely ignore the inner qualities, but the things they focus on are very superficial. As long as the basic psychological conditions for living are met, you can get married now. For example, men are practical and capable, a gentle and virtuous woman. As for the deeper inner qualities, such as values, thinking style and inclination, nothing is more important than living life. Certainly, the word "living" is also very Chinese. We can also discuss this later.

Overall, whether due to collectivist culture or Confucian culture, it is Chinese culture first. This can certainly largely explain Chinese parents’ anxiety about their children’s marriage. But it is not enough to attribute this.

What we are asking is, is this culture the result of the natural development of human nature? If it is not natural, it's distorted. So what is the path of this culture? What about the individual mind?

As we said in our video on October 27, what was said, when we talk about culture, it is important to note that there are two kinds of culture.

One is a specific choice. For example, do you prefer to use chopsticks or forks? Do you prefer to wear cheongsam or suit? Chinese culture in this sense, it can be tolerated as personal freedom.

But there is also a culture in an abstract sense, for example, this culture of urging marriage. This culture is not free. It's distorted. Because we think no group of people naturally like a life without personality and freedom.

In addition, if we think that China’s collectivism or maybe Confucian culture is the essential answer, nor can it explain why in this culture, between individuals, why are there so many differences in reflective ability? And what causes the differences between them?

Therefore, we are not concerned with the culture as a whole here. It is the process of individual psychological development.

In my opinion, China's marriage-urging culture, if this is a culture, it is a product of trauma. This is manifested in two aspects:

First, trauma causes parents’ mentalization abilities to be impaired, poor mind-reading ability.

That is, we often fall into the psychological equivalence mode. Psychic equivalence. The psychological equivalent mode is a primitive state. It is too easy to project inner feelings onto the outside world. Inability to differentiate and label one’s own experiences with the real world. Inability to interpret and reflect on one’s own experience.

When they express their feelings, when projected onto others, they will feel the negative feelings are so strong, it's like a real threat. As a result, they often behave in an aggressive manner and can't feel the other person's emotions. This is also the main characteristic of borderline personality.

We can see many parents can say this when urging their children to get married, very harsh and irritating language, or use painful cold violence. For example, some parents would say, "You are still not married at this age. Don’t you feel ashamed?” This is actually themselves, fear and anxiety about being judged by others.

But their minds, drowning in this unreflective feeling, they took the experience at face value and project it to the child. They can't imagine the pain that children feel after hearing these words.

Similar findings are seen in patients with PTSD: The inability to maintain multiple perspectives on a particular experience, difficulty understanding their own and others’ experiences.

So it's not so much a cultural, it's more like a trauma. In normal state, an individual should be able to implicitly guide any experience has depth of interpretation. Between inner feelings and external reality, there is a lot of room for explanation. Different interpretations can lead to completely different feelings. This is what we often call metacognitive ability. Monitor your thoughts and cognitions, thinking and evaluation.

If parents have metacognitive abilities, he will first realize: Your own ideas are first generated by yourself. This seems like nonsense. However, many people forget this, directly equating one's own beliefs with the other party's beliefs, then evaluate the other person's mind.

Metacognitive ability cannot do without attachment relationships that reflect and mirror children’s emotions. When parents are able to give accurate feedback, children are able to label their emotions, and adjust and encode it. Thereby, make your own experience cognitively applicable, and based on this, to predict one's own and others' emotional states.

So, why do many Chinese parents lack what about the ability to mentalize and read minds?

Let's start with the video, take the netizen mentioned as an example. He said his father's entire family had problems, higher rates of mental illness. This is with his father, the whole family's experience is directly related.

Because of class issues, his father's family suffered a long period of discrimination and attack. After 1949, his grandmother was classified as a landlord. My great grandfather once did grassroots cadres of the Kuomintang regime, died an unnatural death in the early 1950s.

This led to my father's entire family, they have fallen into long-term learned helplessness and a stronger group and fear of being unsociable.

Because of the long history, plus, people tend to forget trauma. He had a hard time getting through interviews and inquiries to understand the situation of your father or grandparents at that time. But according to the historical records of that era, it is not difficult to guess the psychological state of people at that time.

For example, in this video we talk about intergenerational trauma, just mentioned, by 1963, Class Composition behavior that has permeated into one's personal life. Children and family members of the five black categories in terms of employment, further education and marriage, being discriminated against.

Even if these people were born after 1949, some areas even stipulate the requirement for primary school to junior high school is that family background accounts for 60 points, performance accounts for 20 points, 5 points for academic performance, others 15 points. In some factories, workers with bad ingredients are not allowed to operate precision machine tools because of the fear of sabotage.

In all the struggles, Black five categories of families almost certainly a priority target. The methods of punishment include lectures, kneeling, tying up and beating, etc.

We can totally imagine, in this environment, parents with bad ingredients, I am filled with anxiety and fear. There is no spare energy to respond to and reflect children's emotions. Not only that, children also tend to become vessels for their parents’ emotions. This will lead to a person staying in a more primitive emotional mode.

On the other hand, because of class background, the whole family will be implicated. A person's composition is not good, his children and family will be discriminated against. This in turn led to further strengthening family ties and values.

Because family members, we have experienced common trauma and helplessness. They will place more hope on passing on the family line. Expand your community, give your life meaning and motivation.

As we mentioned in our video on October 27 last year, many traditional cultures seem ancient, but it is actually promoted because of the current needs. Even invented out of thin air. Anderson believes, Nation is an imagined social construct. It does not exist naturally. It is formed through people's common imagination. Members of an ethnic group may not know each other. But through the recognition of common language, culture and history, they formed an imaginary connection.

This also means, in the new environment, out of some practical need, National culture can also be invented again. Therefore, my father is obsessed with urging marriage and continuing the family line. Rather than replicating a certain Chinese culture, it is better to say it is due to the lack of material and spiritual.

In contrast, the mother of the party, although I tend to exert pressure and control at the beginning, however, after consultation and communication, the mother showed her traditional ideas a higher level of reflection. Be more tolerant and understanding of her emotions. Grandma also thinks it is normal for young people not to get married at this age. The child just has his own ideas. This is related to my grandmother's obsession with urging marriage, a sharp contrast. This contrast obviously, the trauma experienced by both families, there is a direct relationship.

The Second Level of Trauma: The deprivation of social support system. Or, we talked about this in the video about intergenerational trauma.

After 1949, local governments should take measures against the five black categories. A policy of isolation was generally adopted. In some rural areas of Shandong, Government regulations: People who were classified as landlords were not allowed to watch plays. Not allowed to speak to the masses. You must bow your head and give way to anyone you meet on the road. Officials can enter the house to check at any time, etc.

This means individual and family are excluded from the normal functioning of society, falling into a state of social death. This kind of "social death" it’s not just about physical isolation, it's more about depersonalization on a psychological level. Individuals are seen as incomplete and unsocial beings.

For example, two or three relatives were talking about him behind his back. His fear and anxiety can easily become generalized. He feels like the whole world is criticizing him. Because he easily feels people around us, government, country, the whole world seems to be one.

For those who are of bad class, those people and cadres who come from good families, local government, central government, it's all iron plate. Both represent the ability to suppress oneself, the Power of Monitoring Yourself. If an individual challenges any of them, just challenge them all.

For them, the whole structure of society appears so strong and unified, so that they feel any reflection or resistance to external norms or evaluations will directly threaten the survival and safety of. They can't imagine the outside world has different views.

If someone opposes you, then he just represents a group. Because different groups, great diversity in views and values. So in theory, no matter what your opinion is, in a society, find a group that supports you.

So, when an individual is in a group, you can maintain your independence and freedom, without having to feel I am a lonely person to fight against others. Even if you are in reality, no conditions to link your community, but as long as you can infer there must be such a community in the world, can to a large extent relieve the feeling of isolation.

However, due to long-term deprivation and isolation, they often can only perceive one side of society, in particular, the perception is of a unified threat or pressure. So they can’t perceive other views in society, groups and possible support.

This will make individuals extremely obedient to external evaluations. This is also consistent with the "psychological equivalence model", that is, individuals are unable to distinguish their own subjective views, the objective reality of the external world. All external information will be emotionalized and self-projected, lack of self-criticism and the ability to make independent judgments.

In fact, many Chinese families have psychological problems, it seems that it is due to persistence and adherence to a certain culture, but on a psychological level, can all be seen as the accumulation and inheritance of trauma.

A person does not become a person just because he grew up in China. You must have the thinking methods of Chinese culture. The key lies in his personal experience and mental journey. This microscopic environment, including the physical environment and the psychological environment perceived by the individual, it determines people's minds more than the overall culture.

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I will post this video, put it in the list of "Psychology and Education". Also recommend to everyone, check out my other videos in this list. Thank you for watching, goodbye!