Marriage Customs Reform Pilot Experimental Areas in Many Places Vigorously Promote Changing Customs and Customs
Bad habits such as high-priced betrothal gifts have been effectively curbed
□ Our reporter Pu Xiaolei
The recently released "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Promoting the Key Work of Rural Revitalization in an All-round Way in 2023" requires that localities be encouraged to formulate norms for changing customs and customs according to local conditions, and strengthen the binding role of village regulations and civil agreements. Special treatment of outstanding problems in key areas such as general operations and general affairs.
This is already the fourth time in five years that the No. 1 Central Document has named the issue of high-priced betrothal gifts—in 2019, "high-priced betrothal gifts" was named for the first time.
From 2021, "high-priced betrothal gifts" have been named for three consecutive years.
As the main department responsible for marriage management, the Ministry of Civil Affairs attaches great importance to and manages social chaos such as high-priced betrothal gifts and large-scale operations.
In 2018, the Ministry of Civil Affairs made the reform of marriage customs a key task for research and deployment.
In 2020, the "Guiding Opinions of the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Marriage Customs Reform" will be issued.
In April and September 2021, the civil affairs department identified a total of 32 national marriage custom reform experimental areas in two batches.
In recent years, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has also actively promoted the construction of provincial, municipal, and county-level marriage custom reform experimental areas. A total of 1,365 local experimental units have been identified across the country, forming a four-level responsibility system for simultaneous implementation of pilot projects at the ministry, province, city, and county levels.
The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in an interview with a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" that in general, the local party committees and governments at all levels, as well as the general public, highly recognize and fully affirm the work of the experimental area, and generally believe that the reform of marriage customs is imperative. Carrying out pilot experiments is a powerful starting point for advancing work.
Taking this as an opportunity, each experimental zone actively cultivated and practiced the core values of socialism, vigorously promoted the change of customs in the field of marriage, inherited and developed the excellent Chinese marriage and family culture, effectively curbed bad habits such as high-priced bride price, grandiose marriage, etc., and achieved preliminary results in the experimental work .
Multi-local villagers' convention restricts bad marriage customs
In recent years, most of the experimental areas have incorporated the restrictions on high-priced betrothal gifts and grandiose marriage customs into the villagers' and residents' conventions to guide newcomers to internalize the concept of civilization and frugality in their hearts and externalize them in their actions. It has been effectively curbed, the level of rural civilization has been greatly improved, and the degree of social harmony has been significantly enhanced.
Ningling County, Henan Province has established Yifeng Yisu Pavilion and Yifeng Yisu Banquet Hall. There are unified standards for banquets, tobacco and alcohol. It is stipulated that the cost of meals, tobacco and alcohol per table for weddings should not exceed 300 yuan, and the betrothal gifts for engagements should not exceed 30,000 yuan. Diligence and thrift have become common practice.
Feixiang District, Handan City, Hebei Province has made specific regulations on the number of wedding tables, the number of cars, the number of days, the scope of hospitality, and the procedure of the ceremony through the village rules and regulations. The average wedding expenses of villagers are 20,000 to 30,000 Yuan, the unhealthy trends of blind comparisons, grandiose actions, and "sky-high price gifts" are on the decline.
Hejian City, Hebei Province invited city leaders, deputies to the Municipal People’s Congress, CPPCC members, and moral models to issue marriage certificates to couples with “zero betrothal gifts” and “low betrothal gifts”. Accounting for 7.7%, 5100 pairs of low betrothal gifts, accounting for 85.8%, effectively driving the improvement of the rural atmosphere.
Inherit China's excellent traditional wedding culture
Each experimental area adheres to the core socialist values, actively inherits and develops the excellent traditional Chinese wedding culture, strives to increase the supply of wedding culture products and basic services, promotes the new trend of marriage customs, and provides high-quality spiritual nutrition for the masses.
Wuhou District, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province has built a multi-ethnic wedding custom mini-museum in the community. With the multi-ethnic wedding custom culture as the theme, it displays and promotes the excellent traditional Chinese wedding custom culture and builds community cultural identity.
Yongji County, Jilin Province built Yilemen Village, the hometown of Jin, as a "Manchu wedding custom culture pilot village", built a national cultural museum, held a traditional Manchu wedding custom culture exhibition, hired folk custom inheritors to make Manchu wedding custom paper-cut paintings, and invited cultural and historical experts to write "Manchu Marriage Custom Culture" The guidebook helps the reform of local marriage customs with characteristic marriage customs culture, and promotes the new style of civilized marriage customs.
Toutunhe District, Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region built the "Urumqi No. 1 Elm" cultural square into a demonstration square of civilized marriage customs in the new era, displaying representative items of wedding customs with ethnic customs under the theme of "Dream·Home·Road" to attract young people , Newcomers pray and make a wish.
Actively promote simple and moderate wedding etiquette
In recent years, each experimental zone has actively promoted institutional innovations such as marriage certificate issuance services and collective weddings, and wedding customs and etiquette are simple and moderate.
Each experimental area actively promotes the innovation of marriage certificate issuance services, creates indoor and outdoor certificate issuance venues, and establishes a certificate issuance system for local leaders, deputies to the National People's Congress, members of the CPPCC, and social celebrities, providing a high-quality carrier for enhancing cultural self-confidence.
Yanhu District, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province invites golden-married seniors, deputies to the National People's Congress, and government officials to be specially invited certificate issuers, and holds collective certificate awarding ceremonies on special days, making marriage commitments and certificate awarding ceremonies a new trend that the masses love to see, and enhances the couple's awareness of marriage. sense of responsibility.
Collective weddings are generally organized and held regularly in various places, and outdoor collective wedding bases are specially set up. At important time points, collective weddings are organized for different groups, which has played a good role in demonstration and leadership and is very popular among newlyweds.
For example, the collective wedding of "Love is full of Jianye, don't worry here - bless the newcomers who fight the epidemic" held in Jianye District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, the collective wedding ceremony of civilized practice in the new era held in Huangdao District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province, relying on the open-air wedding base, Inner Mongolia "The Most Beautiful Collective Wedding in Lucheng" held annually in Qingshan District, Baotou City, Autonomous Region.
In-depth development of marriage and family counseling services
Each experimental zone actively explores and adopts methods such as venture capital investment, funding subsidies, and government purchase of services to promote the initial establishment of a long-term mechanism for marriage and family services, and provides emotional counseling, psychological counseling, marital crisis mediation, and methods of handling family relationships for newlyweds. Services to improve the parties' comprehensive ability and quality in maintaining marriage and family.
Dongtai City, Jiangsu Province relied on the Marriage Registration Center to carry out various activities such as psychological lectures, group counseling, and multimedia publicity, and provided pre-marital counseling for 1,665 newly-married couples on a regular basis, and provided case services for 248 couples with marital problems, with an effective rate of more than 90%.
Qionghai City, Hainan Province has established a team of 230 marriage and family instructors to carry out work such as publicity of marriage customs reform and mediation of marriage and family conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level, and the service team for marriage customs reform has been continuously expanded.
Huanggu District, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, brought marriage and family counseling to the pilot community, established case files, and adopted targeted, one-on-one, whole-process follow-up methods to solve marriage and family problems.
Nangang District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province developed a mobile app to provide "pre-marital knowledge assessment" online answering service on the basis of the voluntary basis of the parties, helping couples understand the responsibilities and responsibilities inherent in marriage and family in answering questions, and complete the role change as soon as possible.
Strive to create a brand of family tutoring and family style
In recent years, many places have worked hard to build a brand of family education and family style, and the new style of civilization has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Some experimental areas have created various family education and family style construction activities with fresh content and novel forms, and carry out activities to enter families, communities, villages, campuses, and enterprises with good family traditions, good family education, and good family traditions. The things around us and the role models around us purify the social atmosphere, influence the neighbors, and build a harmonious family atmosphere, creating a healthy and upward family atmosphere.
Focusing on the theme of "inheriting a good family tradition, cultivating a good family tradition, and building a good family" in Fengxian District, Shanghai, more than 400 "Women's Homes", "Women's Micro Homes", "Home Centers", children's service centers in various streets and towns and The Children's Home has extensively carried out more than 1,000 themed activities of "discussing family traditions and precepts and rules, showing family happy life, telling stories about family harmony, showing family civilization, and showing family future dreams", making "family aesthetic education" a daily practice.
Wuchang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province has regularly carried out practical activities such as searching for "civilized families", "the most beautiful families" and "good people in Wuchang", inspiring more families to respect morality, cultivate people by building morality, and use good family traditions to cultivate good folk customs and drive good people. Social style.
Jintai District, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province excavated and sorted out 16 "red family education" deeds, and promoted more than 20 classic family training and family education models in the whole district. At present, 22 family tradition and family training halls have been built.
Baohe District, Hefei City, Anhui Province incorporated the requirements of marriage custom reform into the selection indicators such as democratic and legal demonstration residences (villages), civilized units, civilized families, "good people in Baohe", and moral models, and regularly carried out evaluation activities. The things around us and the role models around us drive the social atmosphere to be good, the neighborhood is harmonious, and the family is harmonious.
Elevate experience into policy measures in a timely manner
The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs said that the Ministry of Civil Affairs will promote the experimental areas to conscientiously implement the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to "carry forward the traditional Chinese virtues, strengthen the construction of family, family education and family style", "inherit the excellent traditional Chinese culture", "establish birth support A series of decision-making deployments such as "policy system", solidly promote the reform of marriage customs in the new era, and ensure the continuous and effective advancement of the work in the experimental area.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs requires that work guidance be further strengthened.
Instruct each experimental area to further focus on experimental themes, innovate platforms and carriers, condense experimental results, and strive to form a batch of innovative experiences that can be learned, used, replicated, and promoted; communicate experimental progress in a timely manner, report or display experimental results, and organize experimental areas to develop capabilities Build training, carry out horizontal learning and exchanges within the province where the experimental zone is located or across provinces, form a vivid situation of mutual learning and mutual promotion in the experimental zone at the national level, and help the experimental zone broaden its horizons, expand its thinking, and improve its capabilities.
At the same time, further improve the working mechanism.
Guide each experimental area to improve the working mechanism of party committee leadership, government responsibility, departmental coordination, and mass participation in the experimental area, give full play to the role of the coordination mechanism led by the party committee and the main person in charge of the government, and promote the formation of a work pattern of deployment linkage, force linkage, and policy linkage. Lay a solid foundation for the reform of marriage customs.
Through convening meetings, briefings, joint supervision, etc., promote the resolution of key and difficult issues in the reform of marriage customs, and form a joint force in the reform of marriage customs.
In addition, the transformation of results will be further strengthened.
Guide the provincial civil affairs departments to strengthen the investigation and research on the work of the experimental area, promptly summarize and promote the good practices and experience of the experimental area, and upgrade it to policy measures for guiding general work and service standards that benefit the masses, and continuously promote the change of customs in the field of marriage.
Promote the work of national and provincial experimental areas as a whole, form a work situation of "ministries leading provinces, provinces grasping cities, and cities supervising districts and counties". Marriage custom reform experience.
(Rule of Law Daily)