Abstract:

Taking Dongbei Village as an example，this paper studies the changes in marriage patterns in the past 60 years.Before the young villager moved into cities for jobs，marriage contracts were mostly made by parents′ order and on the matchmaker′s word instead of young people′s free wills which challenge the traditional marriage pattern.While working in the cities，young farmers developed new attitude to marriage.They hope to marry someone who really get along well with themselves.As counter measures，their parents at home notarize the betrothals or hire professional matchmakers to make sure young people get married on their expectation.As a result，parents and their children，traditions of and changes in marriage patterns are becoming two opposing forces.

Key words: countryside, marriage, tradition, matchmaker′s word, professional match makers, changes in marriage patterns, break off a betrothal