Why Did I Keep My Marriage Secret? A Story I Had Never Thought About Telling Before.
Why Did I Keep My Marriage Secret? A Story I Had Never Thought About Telling Before.
But here it is: It is related to the CCP's family planning policy.
When I was still in graduate school at age 22, my then-boyfriend's workplace was going to assign apartments to employees. That's how things worked in China back then. You received a very low salary, but the government provided free housing.
However, without being married, you weren't even qualified to join the queue. Bachelors stayed in the dormitory indefinitely.
So, my boyfriend's colleagues urged him to get married so he could have a chance.
But, although the legal marriage age for women was 18, in reality, city women were expected to marry only when they reached 25. This was part of the "late marriage and late childbearing" policy.
I mustered the courage to explain my situation to the party secretary in our faculty, who was responsible for issuing marriage permits. She was quite sympathetic, understanding how challenging it was to get an apartment at that time. If my boyfriend didn't get into the queue as soon as possible, we didn't know how long we'd have to wait.
So, she agreed to issue me the permit but made me promise two things: 1. I wouldn't have a child until I was 25. 2. I would keep this secret and not tell anyone that I got the permit from her.
I agreed and kept it confidential. I continued living in my student dormitory, and none of my classmates or roommates knew I was married.
We didn't have a wedding either.
But... my husband later quit his job before he could get an apartment. He rented a very small basement, just large enough for one single bed, where he started his own company.
After I graduated, we moved into his teacher's extra apartment, which was inconveniently located far from the city. His teacher lived in the apartment assigned to his wife; he had one from his own workplace too, so he didn't actually need the extra one.
We lived there for two years and only moved into the apartment assigned to my husband when he joined another workplace. By then, I was 26 and already pregnant.
I kept my promise not to have a child before turning 25.
So that's the CCP's policy and people's life, about 30 years ago.
Now they are saying "No girlfriend, no entry to the village"!
This is a photo of me, taken in my graduate student dormitory when I got married. I continued living here, and nobody knew I was legally married.
