We are made up of many nations, multiple cultures and myriad races. When a French man marries an African lady, or when an American marries a Chinese, which culture do we apply? I have been pondering on these things lately.
Looking back, when my childhood friend's German girlfriend came a visiting, the boy's parent housed and fed her like a princess. She did promptly married him and produced an heir the next year. So all parties were happy. But the rules may change if it is an American man coming to visit his ethnic Chinese sweetheart. By Chinese standard, one would expect the man asking for the hand of a lady to pay his own way. Yet, the sweetheart's Swiss friend was cautioning her to put him up in an economic hotel just in case he would expect her to settle the bill.
When we got to this part, I asked the sweetheart what would happen when she goes over to meet the guy's folks. She is planning to pay her own way. I am rather concerned that it would start a precedent, it programs the guy to be on the take whether it is in his or her country. But of course it is her own choices, she could marry a guy and work like a shrew to take care of him. There is no law in any country against a loving wife financially supporting her husband shaking legs at home. My old friend, who migrated to Australia, faces precisely that. Her husband did not adjust well and was mostly unemployed for their four years there.
Of course it is very easy for me to observe and comment on such a complicated set of unwritten rules. I married a fellow Chinese man from my own home town.
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