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To address the surplus of bachelors and imbalance of men and women in China, an economist proposed a solution, which is to legalize polyandry – or allow women to have multiple husbands. However, this did not sit well with the Chinese, as he got himself in hot waters with side-to-side criticisms.
Yew-Kwang Ng, a Malaysian economist, professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, and a columnist in NetEase Finance earned criticisms in Chinese social media after publishing a controversial opinion piece on June 2 in his weekly column “How to be Happier.”
Ng first cited reports showing the gender imbalance in the country with a ratio of 117 boys to 100 girls. This “bachelor crisis” stems from China’s decades-long one-child policy sandwiched with the tradition to prefer sons over daughters, thus illegally aborting female fetuses to carry on the family name
He said that at this rate, men who want to settle down and get married will only face difficulties in finding a wife, which will affect their happiness.
“[If a man’s] natural biological and psychological needs cannot be met appropriately, it will certainly bring substantial negative impact on his happiness,” he wrote in his column where he discusses “all matters related to happiness” like “factors that contribute to happiness” and “the relationship between money and joy.”
Entitled “Is polyandry really a ridiculous idea?”, Ng suggested two ways to address the problems he posed: legalizing prostitution and allowing women to marry two or more men – both of which are currently illegal in China.
Ng wrote that “building brothels for men to visit” would work for men with “urgent needs.” However, this is just a short-term solution as not everyone would have a budget to pay for sex. He also added that wives “serve other purposes such as being life partners, producing offspring, and raising children.”
This is where polyandry comes in as he cited Tibet as an example. The professor said that this is a long-term fix because women are more capable of addressing multiple men’s sexual needs instead of vise versa; explaining that prostitutes serve more than 10 clients a day. Ng added that women doing chores in several households is not as difficult as in just one.
He also wrote that he is not denying the advantages of monogamy such as long-term relationships benefitting kids’ growth and education. But he still emphasized that China’s current sex ratio calls for another solution which is polyandry.
While a lot called him out for these ideas defying traditions and moral views, a lot were more enraged by his “misogynistic” views, reducing women to being roles of reproduction and just instruments to fulfill men’s’ desires.