THE CHINA JOURNAL NO 48 Here it is interesting to compare the Xiajia case with Parish and Whyte's 1978 study. Parish and White found that parental dominance in mate choice had declined from 83 per cent in the 1950s to 41 per cent by the mid-1960s and to 38 r cent by the mid-1970s. My Xiajia survey reveals a similar trend of increased youth autonomy, as cases of parental dominance fell from 87 per cent in the 1950s to 28 per cent in the 1970s. However, this trend halted at the level of the 1970s, as parents still played a dominant role in nearly a quarter of the marriage ases during the 1980s and 1990s. Does this mean the growth of youth autonomy reached a ceiling by the end of the 1970s? To understand this phenomenon, we must take two factors consideration. First, it is unrealistic to expect the total disappearance of parental participation in spouse selection. Given that some youths even today rely on the parents to take the initiative in this, the crucial question here is to determine hether the young people agree to a given choice of spouse. To answer this some Chinese scholars use a more case-sensitive standard heir surveys, distinguishing between"parents dominate, children dissatisfied"and"parents dominate, children satisfied,. Moreover, as the terms parental dominance and youth dominance focus mostly on who makes the initial proposal in a given case these labels tell us little about the actual interactions between young men and women in the process. This is particularly problematic in dealing with the more recent cases, as virtually all engagements since the 1970s have been based on the young people's consent, which made the presence or absence of parental involvement in spouse selection less important than before The survey figures alone, therefore, cannot present the whole picture about the complex dynamics of courtship. For instance, a scrutiny of the matches-by introduction marriages reveals that love and affection also have a place in man of these cases. a finding that echoes Victor De Munck's observation of romantically motivated arranged marriages"in rural Sri Lanka. Two trends deserve close attention. In most cases of village endogamy, brides and grooms already knew their prospective mates before they were formally brought together by an introducer. The introducer, who could be a relative, a friend, a leader of the collective or even a semi-professional matchmaker, often serves as an intermediary to negotiate the amount of marriage gifts exchanged between the two families. Actually, in some cases, an introducer is called in only for ritual Parish and Whyte, Village and Family in Contemporary China, p. I See Xu, Shiji zhe jiao Zhongguoren de aiqing he hunyin, p. 44 18 In an excellent analysis of romantic love and cross-cousin marriage, De Munck argues that the dichotomy between romantic love and arranged marriage has prevented scholars from understanding the complex richness of the emotional world of villagers. He shows that more than 70 per cent of the cross-cousin marriages arranged by parents actually involved prior romantic love, concluding that"contrary to conventional wisdom, romantic love does play a significant role in a community where parents officially select an offsprings mate American Ethnolog ist, Vol 23, No 4(1996),p. 71134 THE CHINA JOURNAL, NO. 48 Here it is interesting to compare the Xiajia case with Parish and Whyte's 1978 study. Parish and White found that parental dominance in mate choice had declined from 83 per cent in the 1950s to 41 per cent by the mid-1960s and to 38 per cent by the mid-1970s.'6 My Xiajia survey reveals a similar trend of increased youth autonomy, as cases of parental dominance fell from 87 per cent in the 1950s to 28 per cent in the 1970s. However, this trend halted at the level of the 1970s, as parents still played a dominant role in nearly a quarter of the marriage cases during the 1980s and 1990s. Does this mean the growth of youth autonomy reached a ceiling by the end of the 1970s? To understand this phenomenon, we must take two factors into consideration. First, it is unrealistic to expect the total disappearance of parental participation in spouse selection. Given that some youths even today rely on their parents to take the initiative in this, the crucial question here is to determine whether the young people agree to a given choice of spouse. To answer this some Chinese scholars use a more case-sensitive standard in their surveys, distinguishing between "parents dominate, children dissatisfied" and "parents dominate, children satisfied".'7 Moreover, as the terms parental dominance and youth dominance focus mostly on who makes the initial proposal in a given case, these labels tell us little about the actual interactions between young men and women in the process. This is particularly problematic in dealing with the more recent cases, as virtually all engagements since the 1970s have been based on the young people's consent, which made the presence or absence of parental involvement in spouse selection less important than before. The survey figures alone, therefore, cannot present the whole picture about the complex dynamics of courtship. For instance, a scrutiny of the matches-by￾introduction marriages reveals that love and affection also have a place in many of these cases, a finding that echoes Victor De Munck's observation of "romantically motivated arranged marriages" in rural Sri Lanka.'8 Two trends deserve close attention. In most cases of village endogamy, brides and grooms already knew their prospective mates before they were formally brought together by an introducer. The introducer, who could be a relative, a friend, a leader of the collective or even a semi-professional matchmaker, often serves as an intermediary to negotiate the amount of marriage gifts exchanged between the two families. Actually, in some cases, an introducer is called in only for ritual 16 Parish and Whyte, Village and Family in Contemporary China, p. 174. 17 See Xu, Shiji zhe jiao Zhongguoren de aiqing he hunyin, p. 44. In an excellent analysis of romantic love and cross-cousin marriage, De Munck argues that the dichotomy between romantic love and arranged marriage has prevented scholars from understanding the complex richness of the emotional world of villagers. He shows that more than 70 per cent of the cross-cousin marriages arranged by parents actually involved prior romantic love, concluding that "contrary to conventional wisdom, romantic love does play a significant role in a community where parents officially select an offspring's mate", American Ethnologist, Vol. 23, No. 4 (1996), p. 711