Marriage Before Love: A ’70s Rough-Hewn Husband’s Everyday Devotion

[Marriage First, Love Later] [Northeastern China in the 1970s] [Family Life] [College Entrance Exam Comeback] [Sweet Daily Romance]

1976, a small county town in Northeast China.

Lin Wanxing opened her eyes and found herself in the body of a second daughter whom her father didn't love and her mother didn't care for. Her older brother was the apple of her father's eye, while her younger twin siblings were the apple of her mother's. Caught in the middle, she slept in the storage room, ate leftovers, and did the most work. After finally passing the exam to become an accountant at the supply and marketing cooperative, she hadn't even had time to tell anyone before a high fever took her life.

The neighborhood committee came with the notice: every household had to send one person to the countryside. The family had to choose one of the three children. Every eye in the family turned to her in unspoken agreement.

Lin Wanxing didn't cry or make a scene. She secretly took the household register, tucked away the five yuan and thirty cents she'd saved over two years, and knocked on Matchmaker Zhang's door. “Find me a decent family. The countryside is fine, as long as he's a good person and I can marry him right away.”

Three days later, she married Zhao Shanhe of Hongqi Brigade, a man the villagers called a no-good drifter. He didn't like working in the fields, but he could hunt, gather mountain produce, and treat his wife well. They divided the family, bought pots and bowls, went to market to sell goods, pickled napa cabbage, and raised chickens and dogs. Their life took shape amid the everyday clatter of pots and pans.

When news came that the college entrance exams would be reinstated, Zhao Shanhe put their two children on the kang and said, “Go take the exam. I'll take care of things at home.”

Lin Wanxing and Zhao Shanhe built the kind of life that made the whole village green with envy.