Abstract
Today, China counts roughly 35 million more men than women. Assuming that the majority of these men will never marry, the massive gender imbalance has revived the social figure of the guanggun or “bare branch,” an unmarried, thus incomplete man. In a society where heteronormative marriage remains a moral mandate, rising male singleness collides with the enduring ideal of mendang hudui, or “matching doors,” which encourages women to marry close to, and even slightly above, their social status, leaving many men without partners. Public discourse stigmatizing singleness amplifies these tensions, portraying unmarried men as potential threats and single women as selfish. Yet even within this growing anxiety, marriage rates continue to decline worldwide, signaling broader shifts in kinship and gender expectations. This dissertation asks: How do Chinese singletons make sense of their unmarried status in the context of demographic scarcity, shifting gender relations, and the enduring moral authority of marriage? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from five Chinese cities, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and media analysis, I examine how people navigate the contradictions of a culture that demands marriage but makes it both difficult for men and unappealing to women. I argue that women increasingly forgo marriage out of fear of men and the burdens of domestic life, while men experience their singleness as a mark of moral failure, revealing how gendered expectations continue to sustain the moral weight of marriage in contemporary China.