Tongyangxi
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Tongyangxi (Chinese: 童養媳), also known as Shim-pua marriage in Taiwanese (Taiwanese: sin-pū-á, sim-pū-á), was a tradition of arranged marriage dating back to pre-modern China, in which a poor family would sell a child, a pre-adolescent daughter to a richer family as a servant or a caretaker. In exchange, the girl would be married into the adopted family when both children reach puberty. The girl acts both as a daughter-in-law (to be married to the adopted family's young son in time to come) and free labour. The girl is usually a few years older than the male child. Due to the lower-class status of the girls, discrimination was often present, and slavery-like treatment was not uncommon.
A direct translation of "Shim-pua" is simply "little daughter-in-law", while "tongyangxi" means "child daughter-in-law."
These marriages were rarely successful, principally because of the enforced nature of the marriage. This has been explained as a classic demonstration of the Westermarck effect.
In China, the practice was outlawed by the Communist Party of China after they seized power in 1949.
In Taiwan, shim-pua marriage fell out of practice in the 1970s due to increased wealth from Taiwan's economic success, making such arrangements unnecessary.
Related Concepts
"Zhao-Zhui" (Chinese: 招贅) is a related custom by which a wealthy family that lacks an heir might take in a boy child. The boy would take on the familial name of his new family, and typically would marry the family's daughter.
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