Arranged cohabitation among Chinese Muslims.

ABSTRACT: While modern family-related ideas and behaviors have become more widely accepted in contemporary China, Chinese Muslim minorities continue to hold on to traditional religious practices. Surprisingly, data from our survey conducted in Gansu province in China's northwestern borderlands reveal that Muslims of the Hui and Dongxiang ethnicities reported much higher rates of cohabitation experience than the secular majority Han. Based on follow-up qualitative interviews, we found the answer to lie in the interplay between the highly interventionist Chinese state and the robust cultural resilience of local Islamic communities. While the state maintains a high minimum legal age of marriage, the early marriage norm remains strong in Chinese Muslim communities, where religion constitutes an alternat

SUBMITTER: Mu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10895269 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature