Vietnam, cohabitation before marriage increases (with the approval of mothers-in-law...)
A couple who choose to live together before getting married does not raise news in the Western world, where indeed this condition often lasts until the birth of the children and in many cases even beyond, without feeling the need to pronounce the fateful yes in front of a authority, whether civil or religious. This is not the case in a country like Vietnam, where lifestyles and mentalities remain tied to a traditional conception of married life. Yet things are rapidly changing, especially in big cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Danang City, which are more open to Western influences.
Opinions on the subject vary from an uncompromising refusal to a much more permissive attitude, sometimes even openly favorable. In making Vietnamese society more accepting of the idea of pre-marital cohabitation, the decline in fertility, which has been observed for some time and is constantly increasing, seems to have some significance. Young women of childbearing age – and even more their future mothers-in-law – appear obsessed with the problem, and the news that an unexpected pregnancy occurred during a cohabitation makes the mother of the future husband breathe a sigh of relief, who, after the marriage of the two young people, she blissfully transforms into a mother-in-law and a grandmother. Hoa, 54, a resident of Hanoi, says that his first child and his wife still don't have a child, although they have been married for 5 years, bringing the shame of infertility on the family (which for the mothers of Vietnamese males is always to be attributed to the daughter-in-law). As soon as the second son introduced his girlfriend to the family, Hoa immediately encouraged them to move in together and have a baby. “I support them in their choices and in the love they feel for each other,” she declared “but until they tell me there's a baby on the way I don't want to hear about marriage. The child will be the only ticket that will open the doors of the ceremony for them.”
http://vietnamnews.vn/talk-around-town/241757/jury-still-out-on-pre-marital-cohabitation.html
