El aprendizaje organizacional y su relación con la formulación de estrategias

Since the early twentieth century, the complicated marriage procedure of liuli had been under constant attack from Westernized Chinese intellectuals. As early as 1904, Chen Duxiu had identified the Chinese marriage ceremony as being the most unreasonable ritual in the world - a situation that was constantly abused by the bride’s family’s greed in always bargaining for more betrothal gifts and tainted by ridiculous wedding customs such as “kujia”哭嫁[cry at the wedding], “bai tiandi”拜天地[worship Heaven & Earth]

80 _{Young, 66-67.} 81 Dong Baorui, 22-25. 82 Young, 66-67.

and “nao xinfang”闹新房[play tricks in the wedding chamber].83 These customs, according to Chen, revealed the overall contempt of traditional Chinese society for modern conceptions of human rights, especially concerning women’s dignity. Chen argued that these outdated practices must be rejected by more and more Chinese young

people who were “well educated and reasonable.”84

As Chen had predicted, one of the vital traits of modern marriage practice in China was a tendency to simplify the matrimonial procedure in accordance with the New Culturist discourses of free love and anti-feudalism. In the post-May Fourth era, it was common to see a young urban couple get married in a simple ceremony, without any marriage certificate or legal registration, both of which were viewed as being unnecessary for true love. One young couple who got married but refused to sign a written marriage contract publicly claimed that “the so-called marriage contract equals an exchange contract, which is used to guarantee the credit of seller and buyer. But our marriage is not an exchange, and thus requires no contract…only those who were blinded by money worship would like to deal with marriage in the same way as they deal with business. The sacred love, in this sense, is treated like deceiving trade!”85

Under most circumstances, the informal ceremony adopted by communists during the pre-1949 era was a simple dinner, a tea party, a poker game or sometimes even just an

open statement. Zhou Enlai周恩来(1898-1976) and Deng Yingchao邓颖超(1904-

1992) had set the precedent for simple weddings among their friends and comrades. Deng Yingchao described her wedding in this way: “we had no marriage ceremony at all, only inviting our friends. We promised to love, to respect, to help, to encourage, and to

83

The three marriage customs in Chen Duxiu’s description were long-standing and widespread in pre-modern and early-modern China. In the first, the bride had to cry her heart out before she entered the bridal sedan on the wedding day so as to show her reluctance to leave her affectionate parents. When the sedan arrived, the groom and bride had to perform the second ritual called baitiandi. This ritual included both individuals making three kowtows: the first kowtow was for the heaven and earth, the second for the parents and the third for each other. Following this, the bride and groom would be sent into their wedding chamber, to await all of their relatives coming in to celebrate and congratulate them. In the first three days after the wedding, the final custom called for all of the relatives of the husband’s family to play all sorts of tricks on the bride. According to Chen, these tricks were often in the form of a naked insult or even sexual harassment. See Chen Duxiu. “Hunyin” (Discussion on Marriage), in Chen Duxiu Zhuzuo xuan , 39-45.

84

Chen Duxiu, “Hunyin”, Chen Duxiu Zhuzuo xuan , 39-45.

85

console each other, to have consideration for each other, to have confidence and mutual

understanding.”86 When Ren Bishi and Chen Congying got married, they chose to follow

Deng and Zhou’s example. On their wedding day, the couple simply invited some of their comrades to share a meal where they raised their cups to toast one another and then took

a wedding photo.87

Mao Zedong was also a passionate advocate of the marriage revolution. His arranged

wife died in 1910, having never been truly accepted by her spouse.88 In 1920, Mao began

living with Yang Kaihui 杨开慧(1901-1930). The two were married later that year, but

refused to hold an open marriage ceremony, which they claimed as a vulgar act [俗人之

举surenzhiju].89 The two were separated in 1927, after Mao left to participate in the Autumn Uprising. In October of 1930, Yang was arrested for being the wife of the revolutionary and was executed one month later. The boasts of both Mao and his

biographers about his deep love for the late Yang seem strained, considering the fact that

Mao had publicly announced his love for a nineteen-year-old partisan He Zizhen贺子珍

(1909-1984) years before her death. The new union was publicized in 1928 with Mao’s open declaration that “Comrade He Zizhen and I have fallen in love! Our comradely affection has changed to true love and from now on our life together will be devoted to the revolution.”90

The idea of simple weddings was especially appreciated by those Chinese who preferred consensual unions to traditional marriages. This preference might be attributed to the fact that many advocates for consensual unions, like Chen Duxiu and Mao Zedong, actually led lives of bigamy because they seldom bothered to legally divorce their traditional wives before beginning new relationships. Contemporary public opinion usually took the side of wives in criticizing husbands who sued for divorce after taking new lovers, calling

86

Dymphna Cusack, Chinese Women Speak (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1958), 188.

87

Young, 66-67.

88

Tian Shude, Zhenxiang: Mao Zedong shishi 80 wen真相：毛泽东史实80问 [Eighty truths about Mao Zedong]. Beijing: China Youth Press, 2002. http://book.sina.com.cn/nzt/history/his/zhenxiangmzdbsw/27.shtml (accessed March, 30, 2007).

89

Ibid.

90

the action a case of ‘loving the new and loathing the old’. For this reason, getting

involved in an open divorce might indeed have jeopardized a man’s reputation and career. For those who were trapped in an arranged marriage and desperate to embrace a new love, the socialist marriage ideal of a consensual union was a way for these leaders to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone: on the one hand, they would not necessarily divorce their traditional wives, who could then still look after their in-laws; on the other hand, under the auspices of a simplified marriage ceremony, they could also give their

new lovers the mingfen名分[identity] of being a ‘Mrs’ without provoking too much

public opposition (although theoretically, romantic love and sharing a matched passion for the revolution should have been more than enough sentiment to develop a marital or marital-like union). The first chapter of this work discussed how one fundamental goal of a traditional marriage ceremony was to socially legitimize a man and a woman’s sexual behavior through the proper performance of a series of common rituals, which followed legal guidelines and were done with attention to public opinion. Conversely, the

simplified marriage ceremony proposed by these revolutionaries more or less blurred the

boundaries between a formal marriage and a de facto marriage by passing over the legal

process and by minimizing social attention.