论文总字数：23490字

摘 要

随着社会的不断发展，女性的社会地位及自我价值已经得到了重视和提高。在生活中，女性的婚恋观将直接影响结婚后的生活质量和生活状态。中西方的两个大型婚恋交友节目《非诚勿扰》和 Take Me Out ，以其收视率高、反映问题普遍在社会上引起了强烈反响，本文就从这两个中西方有代表性的婚恋交友类节目入手分析，探讨女性意识的变迁，中西方女性婚恋观有何不同.本论文的主旨是从经济基础，外部条件，内在品质，发展潜力等方面对中西方女性婚恋观的差异进行探讨。该论文还从深层次继续探讨了导致这些方面差异的原因，他们是传统思想和男权主义，经济发展程度，社会制度的发展，女性价值观，工作和生活的关系，父母的压力等。

关键词：差异；婚恋观；女性；婚恋交友节目；

Contents

1.Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Differences of Views on Marriage Reflected in the Shows 3

3.1 Views on economic basis 4

3.2 Views on external condition 4

3.3 Views on inner quality 5

3.4 Views on developing potentials 5

4. Influential Factors of the Differences 6

4.1 The traditional view and the male chauvinism 6

4.2 The degree of economic development 7

4.3 The development of social system 7

4.4 Values of women 8

4.5 The relationship between work and life 8

4.6 Parent stress 9

5. Conclusion 9

Works Cited.......................................................................................................10

1. Introduction

Take me out, a famous dating show in Britain, was brought to the United States in 2012 by Fox. The premiere was on June 7, 2012 in the United States and Canada. The ratings reached to 3.3 million.The aim of the show is to let each male guest get a chance to make an appointment with a female.There are 30 women standing on the stage in each session of the show.After the male guest showing short videos he prepared before the show, he can make a performance such as playing the music instruments to attract women’s attention. During the performance, female guest can turn off the lights at anytime they want. If there are still lights on after 3 rounds, he can ask questions to the female guest he want to make appointment with. Finally he should make the choice to determine which woman he want to date with.

Fei Cheng Wu Rao is the Chinese version of Take Me Out. It is a reality-dating show, broadcast on Jiangsu TV on January 15, 2010, hosted by Meng Fei, the guests are Le Jia and Huang Han, two analytical reviewer. The show changed the traditional way to make friends and reveal the views on love and marriage of people in the new era completely.In each session of the show, there are 24 female guests standing on the stage to determine whether the male guests should stay or leave by turn on and turn off the lights. Female guests understand male guests’ conditions by watching four short videos and communicating with male guests on the stage. The round of choosing is similar with Take Me Out.

The materials in the thesis are not only from the two famous shows, but also from perusing remarks on these shows and literatures in the light of the differences between Chinese and Western women on marriage. In addition, making inquiries will be of much help. As the old saying goes, the longest journey begins with a single step.

Literature Review

According to an online survey conducted by China Youth Daily and Tencent, about 50 percent of the responders still believe in true love, while 51.6 percent of females and 58.8 percent of males think abundant material wealth is necessary for a happy marriage. About 47.4 percent of female and 39.3 percent of male responders agree that happy marriage requires real property. More than 7 percent of female responders even say they would never think about men without houses and cars of their own, and nearly 12 percent of male responders would not propose to their girlfriends unless they have solved the “car amp; housing problems” first. The focus on “cars and houses” actually reflects their pursuit for stable and decent lives, as both are considered as symbols of wealth in China.

Interestingly, more than half of the responders think it is men’s responsibility to support the families, and nearly all the rest believe it takes mutual efforts of women and men, but nearly none think it is up to women to support the families.When asked about their attitude towards marriage, most of them say they appreciate love and responsibility, but “practical” issues like wealth and jobs should be taken into consideration, too.(Williams, 9 November: 27)

Jeninfer Brown, top humanities professor from BU, points out that due to the lengthy history of more than five thousand years, Chinese tradition has gained its irreplaceable position in people’s daily life and has its own influence on people’s characters by environment effects.

For instance, due to the idea that man is superior to woman, Chinese women usually have great dependence on their husbands. For a long time, Chinese men have gone by the name of breadwinners of their families. A man used to be responsible for almost everything for the whole family for quite a long time.

With the progress of the times, Chinese women’s status has been improved a lot and women begin to take far more responsibilities than before. However, whether the psychological dependence on men has disappeared is still doubtful. Though they have an equal footing in social status nowadays, women are still used to asking for men’s assist in different ways sometimes.(George, March,2009: 34)

Jesus White, history professor from UCLA, airs his view on American women’s concept of marriage from a similar perspective. He says, when it comes to freedom, Uncle Sam can chatter without stop for a whole day because Aunt Sam is always talking about that!

As is known to all, Americans have a strong faith in liberty. Needless to say, so do women from the U.S. Women from the U.S tend to act as active as men in all aspects of social life and men are usually willing to accept the status. Therefore, American women’s concept of marriage is closely related to the concept of freedom and equality.

With the passage of time, American women are gaining more and more responsibilities and rights in the social division of labor. As a result, this aggravated the situation.(Frank, September: 7)

Differences of Views on Marriage Reflected in the Shows

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, audience can figure out the female guests’ views on spouse-selection and marriage through their expressions and choices. Before a man become their ideal person, he should go through many tests. Chinese women list detailed standards and many factors. These factors are all very realistic and harsh. Chinese women focus more attention to men’s economic status, material basis and future potential of development. They consider more carefully.the man whose current economic situation is good, and having good job prospects and outstanding family background, medium appearance and relatively stable personality of men are more likely to date with female guest successfully. To Chinese women, men who are stable in every aspects are their best choice.

In Take Me Out, audience can find that dating successfully does not mean the marriage for western women. Marriage is just an adventure that both parties are free to choose and looking for happiness together. Western women pay more attention to their own likings and tastes. They only consider whether or not the two people can really get along well. Men are just the spice of their life, but not all for them. Western women hope that they can improve themselves and realize their self-worth by their own ability. What they go after is a kind of relaxed and happy relationship. They never use heavy chains to ensure the relationship with each other, the only guarantee is the feelings between them.

Marriage is a big event in a woman’s life, so all the women try their best to choose their own suitable man in their heart. Their different views will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

3.1 Views on economic basis

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, this is the most important point for Chinese women to consider when they want to choose a man to get married. Chinese women care more about the men’s present condition of economy, their family background, their income and how many luxury cars and houses they own. These visible data will be paid more attention to.Women’s attitudes also reflect their wish to rush to upward society, as well as the desire to change their destiny by marriage(Sun Yinghao).

There are also some shocking words from female guests in Fei Cheng Wu Rao such as, “If you can earn more than 200,000 a month, you can touch my hand”, “I smelled the smell of money”. In Chinese dating show, a poor boy who earns 850 yuan a month was rejected. Men with unstable income have no future. They are all rejected by the girls with a variety of excuses.

On the contrary, in Take Me Out, western women consider economic condition the least important when they select their spouse. Economic basis is not too much involved in the performance of the male and female guest. When the female guests choose their partners, they do not just focus on each other’s economic condition, career prospects. They pay more attention to their life style, the quality of life together. Although economic basis is of much importance to a family for real.

3.2 Views on external condition

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, audience can find that Chinese women judge a book by its cover. Female guests concentrate on male guests’ size of eyes, height, figure and so on.The man whose appearance is better than average is more popular and the man whose appearance is less than average will be left out. Female guests often choose the man who is handsome. The first impression is important, but women should not judge a person only by appearance. The good news is that only few women choose external condition to be the most important mate condition.

In Take Me Out, the external image is not in the main position in western women’s heart. The process is started with a dynamic optional music, coupled with friendly “Hello” from the male guest. It’s difficult for ladies to say no when they facing the male guest. Most of the female guests will not be too hasty to refuse a chance. When the host asked them questions, facing the smile and eyes of male guests, they are usually friendly to get further understand about the male gusts. In my opinion, friendly manners may be of more fascination to Western women.

3.3 Views on inner quality

In Take Me Out, female guests know that it’s unrealistic for any guest to realize other guests well in limited hours and stressed performance on the stage.So they prefer to observe the male guests from details they show on the stage. They mainly want to realize male guests’s nature characteristics.Take a male guest as an example, in his video, when he did farm work in his farm, he helped his sister to lift a heavy pail of water. A female guest thought the male guest is a hard-working and responsible man from the detail.

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, female guests also take men guests’ inner quality as a major condition and they are harsh to this sometimes. If they discover the fact that the man has the sign of demoralization, they will say no resolutely.

3.4 Views on developing potentials

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, family background and education level are considered a lot by Chinese women since the developing potential depends much on these. The experience of Dai Bin, a male guest, is a good illustration. Because he is from a region of poverty, he failed in dating with any female guest finally. When he came back to the stage, his explanation for breaking up with his ex-girlfriend even made many female guests pass on them. He doesn’t want to be tied on these external things when he is young. He called on the present female guest to rent a house to live with him, whereas female guest replies “what we need is a capable man who can buy a house”.

He comes from a small village from Sichuan. All the female guests are unsatisfied with his poor family background. His backward attitude toward marriage is deeply affected by his education level. This is the main reason for his failure.

In Take Me Out, men’s factors such as personality, characteristics and life interest is more important to women. Sense of humor, sense of responsibility and relaxed atmosphere is their standard. They care more about whether their would-be partners have enthusiasm and positive attitudes of life. Only the man who has similar interests, living habits, suitable personality with her has the developing potentials.

For example, the male guest’s first showing up is started with a free music playback, Female guest can determine whether this male guests’ interests are as same as hers by the style of music chosen by the male guest. Another example, a woman refuses to have a husband working in Wall Street. They have their own ideas, much different from that of Chinese girls.. For western women, it’s also very important for men to have enough time to spend with his wife together.

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, the female guests often ask about a man’s work, and they are curious about his life, including his family, his work place and so on. Some girls turned off the lights because they can’t accept long distance separation. Chinese women are just like men’s life career coach. In Take Me Out, western women pay attention to the health and life state of the male, and they always have a keen interest in the sport. The male guests who can play musical Instruments such as guitars specialty also have a special attraction, and it is easy to find that they require their life partner have good living habits and life interest. Western female guests are like men’s physical and mental health consultant.(Wang Xi 2011)

4. Influential Factors of the Differences

4.1 The traditional view and the male chauvinism

China is a traditional society that influenced deeply by Confucianism.The thought of wifely submission and virtue and the principle of feudal moral conduct were spread up to now. The view that men are superior than women in traditional society leads to the dependence of women on men. In China, people think that a woman should stick with the man she marries, no matter what kind of man he is. Chinese women believe that a happy marriage is a woman’s value. But western women are seldom influenced by this kind of thought.

A woman’s good virtue is better than one thousand kinds of skills. They hope to find a man who can understand life and knows how to enjoy life and love life. They have traditional Chinese view of marriage. Women’s final destination lies in the family rather than work. Compared to the adventurous and bold love of western women, Chinese women are still weak, conservative and reserved.

In Fei Cheng Wu Rao, it seems that female guests want to rush into the marriage hall as soon as possible. The constraints of the shackles of moral and self affect them too much. Women often deliberately shape herself as wife and mother image in self-expression to meet demand and expectation of male.

Husband and children have become an important part of life for western women, but they are not western women’s whole life. They treat marriage in a relaxed and natural way.

4.2 The degree of economic development

China is an developing country. The quality of life can’t make people feel satisfied. So, people’s desire of living a better life is becoming stronger and stronger. People consider that money can buy everything. Especially for Chinese women, marriage is a big event, they can even change their life by getting married with a rich man. And the difficulty in finding a stable job, the increasing competition and the discrimination in job hunting make Chinese women lose the independence they should gain gradually.

But developed country has experienced the period of developing, and their advanced economic system makes western women not feel as stressed as Chinese women in daily life. So western women don’t have strong pursuit of money.

4.3 The development of social system

The medical insurance, housing and education problems are the most serious problems that most Chinese are facing. Government can’t ensure that everyone in our country could enjoy the subsidy and welfare. So people all want to squeeze into upper society. Western countries have solved the problems in the past. They have set up a complete mechanism of insurance, housing and education

4.4 Values of women

The social resources are imprisoning and blocking people’s thought. Earning more resources means better life and bigger rising space. The unequal social phenomenon made people rob the limited resources. Power means profit. So Chinese women consider more about external conditions, economic basis and so on, this phenomenon also reflected Chinese people’s puzzledom, confusion and lack of sense of safety.

Western women focus more on quality of life and whether men can understand what they really want in their deep heart. Western women focus more on whether themselves can accept the terms of communication. When a man puts a serious attitude to a relationship, anything else is not important. Good personality, humor, individuality, attitude to life are more centered among the western women.

4.5 The relationship between work and life

Almost all Chinese women prepare to do laundry and cooking at home, returning to family roles in the form of a “wife” completely. Chinese women hope that male is powerful enough to protect themselves. Men are in outward expansion development, women are in inward contraction regression.

After many female guests come into the stage, what they said already has the meaning of “retreat”. Some of the outstanding female guests with successful career are in the middle and high management in the company. They are urged to get married by their partners. For economic privilege, men’s social value, the prestige of marriage, these all support the benefits of all that encourage women passionately to please men. They are still in the satellite position.

The western women focus more attention on the individual development. The expression of them are more personal. In their cognitive, now what they need to build is their common home, rather than the other simple “move” or “married”. We will find that western women are able to grasp the importance of communication, they can understand that only two people have the common life and work experience, they will have resonance and topics of chatting.

4.6 Parent stress

In Chinese tradition, parents tend to be better to their daughters. As the Chinese old saying goes, let the son lead a tough life while let the daughter lead a wealthy life. Arduous parents always wish their princess would have a husband above the ordinary. It is not only the pressure from girls’ parents, but also deeply influenced their views and choices.

In contrast, even western parents are also willing to get their sons stronger, they will not show obvious special care to their daughters. This may be the impact of concept of equality. Despite the fact that every father and mother wants that their girls will enter the marriage hall with a good young man, they will choose to respect their daughter’s wish.

It is worth mentioning that not only Chinese parents but also the western set examples for children. Old people’s sense, habit, and even taste have great impact on their kids. You can easily tell what a kid’s parents are like by observing the kid’s behaviour and vice versa.

5. Conclusion

Only when we are accustomed to freedom, we have the courage to write down our own ideas. When we escape the two living room that we share with each other, do not explain human nature in couple’s relationship. But when we realize the real each other, when we sincerely panoramic the view of the reality, no one has the arm to rely on. Everyone is lonely, but our relationship should not be geared to the needs of men and women’s world, but for far more sinister and the outside real world.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, good family education is of much significance to building healthy views on marriage. People cannot deny the fact that the history and the society has great impact on people’s concept, we will never ignore the role of education which forms a person’s perception. This is why everyone should put honor on education and respect educators.

Works Cited

Tani E. Barlow. Gender Politics in Modern China. Writing and Feminism.

Stanford, CA: Standford University Press, 1988

Williams. China Radio International. 2006(11): 27.

George. Vanity Fair,2009(3): 34.

Frank. American Television Magazine. 2010(10): 7-8.

孙英浩，臧晓明.《lt;非诚勿扰gt;现象看当代青年人畸形婚恋观》.辽宁行政学院学报，

2012(8).

王兮.《当代青年婚恋价值观——基于大型交友类节目lt;非诚勿扰gt;的内容分析》.青年作家

（下半月中外文艺版），2011(5).

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：23490字