Wang Guiying, would-be bride, 107, is now seeking her first husband. After years of being afraid to get married, she finally decided the time was ripe to look for her first husband.

“I’m already 107 and I still haven’t got married,” the Chongqing Commercial Times quoted her saying. “What will happen if I don’t hurry up and find a husband?”

Ms. Wang was born in the Guizhou province into a salt merchant’s family. She said that as a child she often heard her aunt being beaten by her uncle until she would hide and cry in the woodshed, and discovered that in the brutally patriarchal world of the China of the time, life was similar for many married women. With such marriage conditions and “feminizing” rituals, such as decreasing the size of women’s feet, she did not even want to consider getting married.

“All the married people around there lived like that. Getting married was too frightening,” she said of an era when Chinese women had few rights and low social standing.

Good for her. A true feminist of her time.

Even after the deaths of her father, mother and elder sister, she refused to get married. She left for the countryside and worked in agriculture until the age of 74 when she moved in with her nephews in the town of Chongqing. She was able to care for herself, until she broke her leg at the age of 102.

However, she now feels she is being a burden to all her nieces and nephews who are now well over sixty. She also didn’t want to burden their children, who also have their own families. To ease their burden, she has asked them to hook her up with a potential partner who is also over 100, so they will have something in common to talk about. It seems local officials are also helping her search for a suitable groom.

To put it into a context we are familiar with, I wonder what her what her subject header or profile on an online dating service would look? Maybe something like this:

Looking to write a new chapter in my book of life.

Independent minded, confident, centenarian woman, never married, seeks reciprocal relationship with feminist centenarian male who values and respects ALL that is me, flaws and all. I’ll never settle for anybody less than I think I deserve.

Anyway, I thought I share it with you, I felt it was a good heartwarming story. I wish her luck and hopefully she will find that special someone.

Related posts

• The Consequences of Lazy Journalism (10)

Tags: China, dating, Wang Guiying |  Print This Post |
functional