Price gets product as magnate deserves fair virgin
By Echo Shan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-01-10 16:49

Jane Austen once said, "A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Vice-versa, it can be said in today's money-driven China that an unmarried material girl is in a desperate and even unconventional search of a wealthy man.

A young girl candidate in green sweater is auditioned during the "sea choice" stage by the wealthy wife hunter Liu Qiang's attorney. [Nanfang Weekend]

The curtain of a first ever wife-hunting scheme rose in an eyebrow-rising way back in 2004. The first crab eater, a Shanghai-based industry magnate, posted a full-page personal advertisement in a hundred newspapers throughout the country - in search of a virgin wife.

Passionate while poised, Northeast-native billionaire Liu Qiang, 42, then a single father to a five-year-old boy from his previous marriage, wanted to restart a family life after a divorce.

"I am indeed searching for a wife rather than an ornamental piece of flesh to restart my life," said Liu then.

He neglected nothing in setting tough standards for his future spouse.

Apart from ordinary qualifications such as fair skin, slim figure, and a university diploma, Liu brazenly mentioned in his ads that he expected the lucky woman to be a virgin.

Although Liu himself, a divorcee with a child, was no novice in sex, surprisingly enough, his virgin-wife solicitation, while a tad chauvinistic, hypocritical, and even insulting, were well received and attracted numerous applications nationwide.

From a shortlist of several after rounds of "sea choices," the popular bachelor finally handpicked a Shanghai girl to fill the slot. The finalist outstood the others in having an extremely benign personality.

When asked whether she would help him wash his feet, the girl, with no hesitation, replied, "Yes."

Another woman named Zhang Yin, a Zhejiang applicant who failed the final audition with Liu Qiang, recently recounted the meeting in a satiric manner: "It was kind of like fruit picking, and I was the helpless apple awaiting his favor then."

"It was clear that I had no chemistry with him from the moment we first met, but my failure to click with him really hurt," said Zhang. "He is such a wealthy man and I desperately love money."

Rebutting others' snobbish criticism, Zhang showed not a trace of shyness, saying, "No one has the right to interfere with my own choice and I have the due right to pursue my dream of an affluent life."

When asked her idea about the virgin request, Zhang Yin once again showcased her bluntness, saying, "The reason why we girls keep our chastity is just to ink a fat deal when the time for marriage comes."

In a clash between of sex and traditional morality these girls lean to the latter, keeping their cherries intact, but when faced with the thrilling temptation of money, morality loses out, according to Guangzhou-based weekly paper Nanfang Weekend.

In this unprecedented bout between value conscience and gold lure, the ultra-rich drum for rare recourses, virgin spouses in this case, which in fact is as valuable to these big shots as a high-end BMW sedan or a sky-high priced suburban villa. In such an environment, virginal girls willingly compete to be a mogul's wife, submitting to harsh demands for the sake of potential future prosperity.

"The world is messy so don't boggle at the junction," says a character in the recent Hong Kong film "Perhaps Love," which depicts an ambitious actress clinging to stardom at the price of love and sex, "Love's merely a decoration piece."

Surprisingly, those female applicants, usually having a university diploma, are more upbeat with their chances for bonding with a big shot. They are confident in their ability to foster love after securing a considerably large bank account.

For Zhang Yin, it can't be any truer that it doesn't vary a lot to marry one man from another. So why not take a rich one? "I have to admit only money can bring me a sense of belonging and safety.

Her kind of mentality is not rare today. A newlywed couple living in Beijing needs 1,068,000 yuan (US$131852) to start a marriage, including the cost of an apartment, a car, and wedding expenditures.

The social norm of the financial burden usually falling on the man might be the result of the lopsided male-female ratio, the women's liberation movement, or some vestige of male-dominated tradition.

Young wives may feel in the dumps once debt bills come to them. Therefore, many exclusively target the haves as husband hopefuls.

As a widespread saying goes, "You have to lead an arduous life on mortgage if you marry a husband making 20,000 yuan (US$2479) per year." So eligible girls brush up their eyes to land a man with a descent pay.

With no exceptions of the rules in a market economy, the "price" always gets the "product." So no wonder the extremely rich claims that a fair virgin wife that, comparatively speaking, is of great rarity in today's China.

A recent survey conducted in several universities in Nanjing of East China's Jiangsu Province showed that 14.5 per cent of students are experienced in sex before graduation, while those with any level of intimacy such as hugging and kissing account for 70 per cent.

The society has grown more and more tolerant with premarital sex as a few universities have pioneered in granting marriage permits to students.

Liu Qiang has succeeded in netting a fair virgin wife. Is the chastity that the girl had kept absolutely for him? Or rather, is it more exclusively for an abundant life?