社会专家:对待上门女婿人们普遍缺乏足够的尊重

After 10 years as a necessary, but ultimately unwelcome, live-in son-in-law, Ma Xuedong divorced, and moved out of his wife's family home.

在马学东被当作一个必需存在、却十分不受待见的上门女婿十年之后，他最终选择了离婚，从妻子家搬出来了。

The end of his unhappy marriage pleased the 37-year-old migrant construction worker, even though he had to scramble to find a place to live in Baoji, Shaanxi province. "My previous life was too depressing," Ma said. "It's a feeling you will never be able to understand if you have not experienced it."

尽管这名37岁的外来建筑工人在陕西省宝鸡市还要再找容身之地，但终结这段不幸福婚姻，他还是感到一身轻松。“我以前的人生太压抑了，”马学东说。“这种感觉如果你没亲身经历过，那就永远不能理解。”

Ma speaks for many of China's so-called live-in sons-in-law, who marry and move in with their wives' families, but never quite became an integral part of the family.

马学东为中国很多所谓的上门女婿道出了心声。上门女婿，是指一些男人结婚后搬到妻子家里生活，但却从未真正成为家庭的一员。

Their numbers are legion, a result of China's decades-old gender imbalance, a historic preference for male offspring, and the desire of families to preserve a surname in danger of dying out in a household in which all of the children are girls.

上门女婿数量庞大，是源于中国数十年来的性别失衡、中国自古以来重男轻女的思想、以及家人担忧如果全生女孩会有“香火失传”的危险。

In a traditional view of marriage in China, a woman marries a man and lives with his family, or the couple lives in their own house, bought by the husband's family, and their children take the husband's surname.

在中国传统的婚姻观中，女人同男人结婚后，应当与男方家人住在一起，或者夫妻住在由男方家庭购买的房子里，孩子应随男方的姓。

This custom has been upended in two ways. First, China's gender imbalance means many men, especially in rural areas, have trouble finding wives. By the end of 2015, on the Chinese mainland, men outnumbered women by 33.66 million, making it challenging for China's left-over men to find a partner. Second, a poor man who cannot pay an expected "bride price" may look for a family that will pick up the cost. These men may marry a woman with no brothers, move into the woman's family home and allow their children to carry their mother's surname.

但是这种传统已经从两个方面被颠覆了。首先，中国性别失衡，意味着男性难找到老婆，尤其是在农村地区。截止2015年底，中国大陆男性比女性多3366万人，中国的“剩男”找老婆已经成为一道难题。其次，没钱的男人付不起彩礼钱，可能会找一个能承担结婚费用的女方。这些男人可能会娶个没有兄弟的女人，搬到女方家里住，让孩子跟女方姓。

Even though the arrangement meets the needs of all involved, families and communities still look down on those who have no sons and opt for live-in sons-in-law to fill the void. In many cases, the resentment creates unhappiness.

尽管这种方式满足了所有人的需求，但家人和邻里仍然瞧不起那些没有儿子而招个上门女婿来填补空缺的人。在很多情况下，由怨恨就产生了不愉快。

Zhang Baotong, a social and economic development expert with the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said live-in sons-in-law should learn to get along with their wives' families and people in their communities.

陕西省社科学院的社会经济发展专家张宝通表示，上门女婿应该学会如何与妻子的家人和邻里相处。

"With the development of urbanization, more and more poor farmers will work and live in urban areas and some of them may become live-in sons-in-law as they cannot pay for houses and the other costs of marriage," Zhang said. "And our marriage concept should change with the development of the times to give full respect to the sons-in-law."

张宝通说：“随着城市化的发展，越来越多的贫困农户将会前往城市工作和居住，由于买不起房子且承担不了婚姻的其他费用，其中一些人可能会做上门女婿。同时，我们的婚姻观念应当与时俱进，对上门女婿给予充分尊重。”