So I was on Viki watching various shows, and I noticed that several Chinese costume dramas have the following plot point: A guy is being forced to marry into his wife’s household instead of the reverse and the fact is so shaming, he literally tries to run away. (Or is dragged off screaming to his wedding night.) This is usually paired with a wife character who is stereotypically masculine. In some cases, it seems to be a romantic gender bend, in some cases, it seems more mean-spirited.
I tend to not have very much sympathy for the husband characters! Their panic is kind of funny, even when the wife character seems extremely aggressive. It is however an uncomfortable kind of funny because it reads as the kind of “ha ha this woman acts like a guy, and the husband is being emasculated” misogynistic humor I tend to intensely dislike. It’s possible I’m misreading the general intent here, for cultural reasons so that’s just my take on this plot point.
My general reaction to the plot point is thus:
Extremely reluctant runaway groom: I don’t want to marry into my wife’s family!
Me: You would if you weren’t a coward.
It should be noted in a cultural/historical context that matrilineal/matrilocal does not generally indicate matriarchal. Various historical societies that used matrilineal descent to decide on inheritance were also patriarchal. The usual setup for this kind of inheritance was that a dude’s nephew by his sister (probably eldest sister because that’s how primogeniture generally goes) would inherit the dude’s stuff. The basic reasoning is that if you want to make sure your heir is actually related to you, choosing your sister’s kid is your only guaranteed option.
So if the joke is, “Ha ha the woman is the man in the relationship” it kind of falls apart because, China? Very patriarchal both historically and in the present. I mean, it’s an entire Thing. (This is not a value judgment. “Western” cultures are also very patriarchal, both historically and in the present. The point here is that matrilineal does not mean matriarchal.) The situation of a dude marrying into a woman’s household is very clearly “We don’t really have any male heirs and/or we can’t afford to have our daughter marry out if we can bring another dude in.”
Some examples (by way of recommendation):
New Life Begins: A girl being presented as a potential future bride of one of a gaggle of princes is doing her level best to avoid this. She is not actually successful. A large deal is made of one of the princes getting married to a woman from a matrilocal kingdom. (The big deal is the prince getting carted off to the poor lady while having desperate hysterics, tied down to the palanquin he’s being carried in.) I have seen maybe two episodes of this show.
My Heroic Husband: This is an unusual variation of the isekai setup! Our hero is himself a character from one genre who is placed by his author into a different genre after having been told to end the character’s series. He wakes up in the body of a guy who is heading toward a matrilocal marriage. This is of course horrible and he does his best to escape, while slowly falling for his bride. Some of the humor hit my “embarrassment squick” so I might not be able to pick this one back up.
My Bossy Wife: I think I did not get very far into the first episode. In this, the guy forced into marriage was attempting to help the groom (of a matrilocal marriage) to escape his wedding. The protagonist gets captured and is forced to serve the female protagonist. This also caused some embarrassment squick.
Note: embarrassment squick does not mean the story was bad, it just means there was a scene where I felt too embarrassed for the characters to continue.
Note: My inability to finish any of these series is not to be taken as an indication of quality. I did like them, but I am more of a reader than a watcher and I get Very Distracted.
Edit: I removed “Oh My General” because it’s not matrilocal, I just thought it was.
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