(ECNS) – Nearly one third of the men in a poor Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region village are having difficulty finding wives, and some of them have to choose consanguineous marriages to continue family lines, Xinhuanet reported on Wednesday.
Data from the Donglan town government shows there are more than 700 people in Nonghua village, including 50 single men aged 30 or above.
According to local customs, children who reach 22 and remain unmarried are considered by their parents to be hot potatoes. There are 87 men aged 22 or older in the village, accounting for about one third of the total number of local adult males.
"No women are willing to marry us," says Luo Anhua, 43. "We're too old to win their hearts."
Luo, his 40-year-old brother and 70-plus-year-old mother live together in a shabby wooden house.
Central and western China's poverty-stricken areas are well-known for their "Bachelor villages". Some choose consanguineous marriages in order to continue family lines, resulting in a deteriorating population quality, the report states.
A couple in the Xiazhao village, Xiji county, Ningxia autonomous region, is such a case. Their mothers are maternal cousins. There are three other intermarriage cases in their village, according to the wife.
A woman and a close relative man who married in a nearby village had five children, four of whom are dumb while the other is infertile, she said.
