Performative family: homosexuality, marriage and intergenerational dynamics in China

Using in-depth interview data on nominal marriages – legal marriages between a gay man and a lesbian to give the appearance of heterosexuality – this paper develops the concept of performative family to explain the processes through which parents and their adult children negotiate and resolve disagreements in relation to marriage decisions in post-socialist China. We identify three mechanisms – network pressure, a revised discourse of filial piety and resource leverage – through which parents influence their gay offspring's decision to turn to nominal marriage. We also delineate six strategies, namely minimizing network participation, changing expectations, making partial concessions, drawing the line, delaying decisions and ending the marriage, by which gay people in nominal marriages attempt to meet parental expectations while simultaneously retaining a degree of autonomy. Through these interactions, we argue that Chinese parents and their gay adult children implicitly and explicitly collaborate to perform family, emphasizing the importance of formally meeting society's expectations about marriage rather than substantively yielding to its demands. We also argue that the performative family is a pragmatic response to the tension between the persistent centrality of family and marriage and the rising tide of individualism in post-socialist China. We believe that our findings highlight the specific predicament of homosexual people. They also shed light on the more general dynamics of intergenerational negotiation because there is evidence that the mechanisms used by parents to exert influence may well be similar between gay and non-gay people.

本文以“名义婚姻”为案例，探讨后社会主义中国家庭与性的复杂关系。研究聚焦于同性婚姻悖论，即在全球范围内同性恋者伴侣选择逐渐增多、中国对同性恋压制减少的背景下，中国同性恋者之间却通过与异性恋者结婚以维持异性恋假象的“名义婚姻”现象日益增多。本研究提出了两个核心问题：（1）中国父母如何通过代际关系影响成年同性恋子女选择名义婚姻的决策；（2）同性恋子女如何在顺应父母婚姻期望的同时，争取自主权。本研究提出“表演性家庭”的概念，分析家庭和婚姻的持久重要性与个人主义兴起之间的张力，揭示代际协商中孝道与性自主权的复杂互动。

本研究采用了质性田野调查的方法，聚焦于中国北方N市这一同性恋社群相对活跃的城市。研究通过参与同性恋社交活动、名义婚姻相亲会以及加入QQ名义婚姻聊天群等途径，深入了解名义婚姻的现象，并招募受访者进行深入访谈。数据主要来源于2010年12月至2014年8月期间对14名男同性恋者和16名女同性恋者进行的30次深入访谈记录。受访者平均年龄为29岁，教育程度普遍较高，其中有9人正处于名义婚姻中，2人已离婚，4人在与潜在对象约会，10人考虑或正在寻求名义婚姻，5人反对名义婚姻。研究结果展现了尽管受访者年轻且受过良好教育，但父母对其婚姻决策仍然具有显著影响，这凸显了中国家庭在社会变迁中的持续控制力。

本文研究发现，中国同性恋者在家庭和社会压力下采用“名义婚姻”来平衡个人性取向与传统家庭责任之间的张力。“名义婚姻”体现了家庭的表演性，其核心是通过形式上的婚姻满足社会期望，而非实质性的婚姻生活。研究揭示了父母通过网络压力、资源杠杆和代际义务话语等机制影响子女结婚决策，同时子女通过战略合作与父母协商以维护自主性。此外，名义婚姻反映了根深蒂固的父权制规范和性别不平等，父母对男、女同性恋者的婚姻期待存在不同动机。总体而言，名义婚姻揭示了后社会主义中国社会变革中代际协商的复杂动态，也为理解其他快速变迁社会中的家庭表演性提供了比较视角。