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A number of young Vietnamese are postponing marriage for careers.
Renting love to keep families happy in Vietnam. (Representative Image)
For a long time, society has determined a certain age for everything, including jobs, marriage and kids. Our parents, too, have become accustomed to such established, but not necessarily appropriate, norms. To tackle this, youths in Vietnam are renting partners.
The phenomenon is a result of growing pressure on youth from their families to get married and have kids. Hence, they have opted for something different to work around the problem without necessarily going for the marriage.
The demand for “partners on rent” has led to the formation of social media groups where people pay for someone’s company on certain occasions. According to the Vietnamese local VnExpress, these agreements mean strict leases banning affection and sexual involvement, stressing the business-like aspect of the deal.
For instance, Minh Thu, a 30-year-old woman from Nam Dinh province said she once paid a man to pretend to be her boyfriend. She needed to present a partner to her parents at a social event, so she spent several hundred US dollars on this arrangement. She told VnExpress: “On the day he came to my house, he helped my mum cook and chatted with my relatives. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my parents so happy and proud of me.”
Vietnamese culture puts emphasis on marriage as a major milestone. Most parents express concerns about their children’s single status labelling it as the success or failure of their parenting skills. The pressure is further fueled by the quest to have a grandchild when parents are still strong enough to help with their upbringing.
Experts observed that such an arrangement (renting partners) is a safety net towards increasing pressure young adults receive from their families. Nguyen Thanh Nga, a researcher at the Academy of Journalism and Communication in Vietnam, told vnExpress: “If exposed, families could experience significant emotional damage and lose trust. Additionally, renting a partner is not legally protected in Vietnam, so women should be especially cautious.”
Although this behaviour may help ease the immediate parental pressure, it highlights other concerns about effective communication within a family. According to the sociologist Dr Pham Thi Thuy, the parents often do not agree with their children’s decisions and, therefore, conflicts occur.
Dr Pham told VnExpress, “Marriage should follow the children’s plans, but it is often forced to fit their parents’ schedule.”
