Marriage Migration as a Multifaceted System: The Intersectionality of Intimate Partner Violence in Cross-Border Marriages

Abstract

This article addresses the intersectional nature of intimate partner violence (IPV) against female marriage migrants in Mainland China–Hong Kong cross-border marriages. The author analyzes data from 15 battered female marriage migrants who share the same ethnicity as their husbands to illustrate how the immigration of female marriage migrants intricately intersects with gender, class, and culture to form a multifaceted system that traps battered marriage migrants in abusive marriages. It is proposed that marriage migration, as a distinct form of migration, involves certain intrinsic risk factors that make marriage migrants particularly vulnerable to IPV.

Keywords

intersectionality and intimate partner violence cross-border marriages marriage migration immigration gender class and culture

Introduction

With the rapid expansion of globalization and the transnational economy, migration across national borders has become a pervasive phenomenon. Many individuals migrate for economic or political reasons; however, women are more likely to migrate for marriage. Due to norms of patrilocality, women marrying foreign men are expected to cross the border to reside in their husbands’ country of residence. This gendered form of cross-border marriage migration comprises a substantial proportion of the migrant pool (Constable, 2005). However, many studies indicate that immigrant women are at added risk of becoming victims of intimate partner violence (IPV; Erez, Adelman, & Gregory, 2009; Menjívar & Salcido, 2002; Raj & Silverman, 2002; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). A growing body of literature, using the theoretical framework of intersectionality, has begun to address the particular vulnerability of immigrant women to IPV (e.g., Bograd, 1999; Crenshaw, 1991; Erez et al., 2009; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). In contrast to the universal risk perspective, this research emphasized the ways in which hierarchies of power and social systems, such as those based on race/ethnicity, gender, class, and culture, intersect to create “simultaneous, multiple and interlocking oppressions” of women (Mann & Grimes, 2001, p. 8). In other words, violence is not caused by a single factor, but rather by the intersection of various dimensions of oppression. The resulting social consequences are “not merely additive but multiplicative” (Erez et al., 2009, p. 34). Yet, as many of the studies have focused on the experiences of the Black or Latino populations in the United States, race/ethnicity has been emphasized as a salient social category that intersects with other oppressive systems to contribute to the higher victimization rate of immigrant women of color. Although this perspective gives a voice to immigrant women of color by highlighting that racial inequality is a fundamental cause of their marginalization and victimization, the effects of race/ethnicity are commonly confounded with those of immigration. Erez et al. (2009) attempted to “analytically [separate] immigrant status from race/ethnicity as a category of intersectionality” (p. 34), and suggested that immigration, instead of a static variable within race, is “part of the interactive dynamic process that, along with race, gender, sexual orientation, and class, informs women’s experiences of and responses to domestic violence” (p. 33). Their work generated critical knowledge regarding the intersection of immigration and domestic violence. However, the inclusion of immigrant women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds in their sample obscured the net effects that immigration itself can have on the life chances of marriage migrants.

To address this methodological difficulty, I use empirical data from female cross-border marriage migrants from Mainland China to Hong Kong, who have the same ethnic Chinese background as their male spouses, which allows me to disentangle the effects of immigration from the effects of race/ethnicity. I do so to highlight that, controlling for the effect of race/ethnicity, immigration alone produces a series of institutional, legal, and social barriers that limit marriage migrants’ access to resources, enactment of citizenship, and social networks, which subsequently reproduces inequalities between men and women, immigrants and non-immigrants, and citizens and non-citizens. Furthermore, despite the tremendous efforts to understand the association between immigration and violence against women, most studies do not explicate how the reason of immigration might affect immigrant women’s experiences of IPV in their host societies. While a vast array of reasons may motivate immigration—for example, higher standard of living, better job opportunities, and increased political or religious freedoms—I specifically focus on marriage migration for three reasons. First, marriage migrants constitute a major proportion of the migrant pool (Constable, 2005); second, women are more likely to migrate for marriage or marital reunion (Erez et al., 2009; Williams & Yu, 2006); third, female marriage migrants are more susceptible to IPV compared with local women (Choi, Cheung, & Cheung, 2012; Raj & Silverman, 2002).

By “marriage migration,” I refer to the type of migration that a woman undergoes spatially and legally as a direct result of her marriage with a foreign man. The terms immigrant wives and marriage migrants are used interchangeably throughout the article to refer to the group of female marriage migrants who immigrated to the place where the husband resides after marriage. Immigrant women who did not migrate as a direct result of their marriage to a foreign man and those who are married to a foreign man but did not migrate after marriage are out of the scope of this study. By IPV, I refer to a type of gender-based violence which encompasses an array of physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, and economic abuses, as well as controlling behavior, that is perpetrated by current or former spouses or partners in couple relationships (Hattery, 2009).

By underscoring the intersectionality of IPV against immigrant women, I argue that marriage migration is the point at which immigration, class, gender, and culture intersect to form a multifaceted system that not only increases the vulnerability of IPV to marriage migrants but also cripples marriage migrants’ ability to manage IPV. Situating this study within the literature on gender, violence, and migration, I hope to direct future studies to re-conceptualize how marriage migration, as a distinct type of immigration for women, shapes the unequal marital power relations between the immigrant wife and the citizen husband, and creates vulnerabilities that impair marriage migrants’ management of IPV and entrap battered female marriage migrants in abusive marriages. At the policy level, the findings of this study would improve public response and service provisions to battered female marriage migrants.

Research Site

With the urban development in the northern district of Hong Kong near Mainland China and the simplification of customs procedures, the increasing economic and social interactions between Mainland China and Hong Kong have facilitated cross-border marriages. In 2013, 28.5% (15,737 marriages) of the total marriages registered in Hong Kong involved a Hong Kong man marrying a Mainland Chinese woman (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2014), indicating a significant proportion of cross-border marriages in Hong Kong. Many of these couples met each other in person through personal networks or at work-related places. However, the census data indicate that Hong Kong men marrying Mainland Chinese women appear to be a selective group with lower median monthly incomes and educational levels, and they are more likely to be unskilled workers, as compared with their counterparts who marry Hong Kong women (Choi et al., 2012). Lin and Ma (2008) suggested that Hong Kong men who marry Mainland women tend to be less educated, work in blue-collar jobs, and are about 8 years older than their wives. Adhering to marriage norms of conformal mating, Mainland brides are more likely to have lower educational backgrounds and lower occupational statuses than their husbands (Lin & Ma, 2008), resulting in lower social positions at home and in society (Pong, Post, Ou, & Fok, 2014). In general, households involving a Hong Kong man and a Mainland Chinese wife tend to be economically disadvantaged. A representative survey in Hong Kong reveals that the proportion of households formed by migrant marriage (marriage involving a marriage migrant) having a household income below or about median (71.4%) is significantly higher than that of those formed by local marriage (51.0%; Choi et al., 2012).

With respect to the prevalence of IPV in Hong Kong, two representative surveys in Hong Kong have revealed that women who had recently immigrated to Hong Kong have significantly higher odds of experiencing violence by an intimate partner during the past year (Chan, Brownridge, Tiwari, Fong, & Leung, 2008; Choi et al., 2012). In particular, a household survey of 871 couples conducted in Hong Kong in 2007 reported that 38.6%, 12.6%, and 13.8% of female marriage migrants reported psychological, physical, or sexual abuse, respectively, by their intimate partners during the past year. These figures are significantly higher than those for local women, with 31.7%, 8.2%, and 8.2% in the latter group reporting to have been psychologically, physically, or sexually abused, respectively, by their intimate partners in the preceding year (Choi et al., 2012).

Immigration policies in Hong Kong are closely linked to Hong Kong’s political history. Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years before its reunification with Mainland China in 1997. Under the “one country, two systems” policy, a border exists between Hong Kong and Mainland China. Laws restrict the movement of immigrants, goods, and capital between the two regions. In light of the massive influx of immigrants from Mainland China after the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, a quota system was introduced in 1950. Starting in the 1980s, a marriage squeeze emerged in Hong Kong, which led single men in Hong Kong to look for spouses in Mainland China. Nevertheless, the right of abode was not granted to Mainland wives of Hong Kong immediately after marriage. Instead, immigration of Mainland spouses and dependent children of Hong Kong residents was governed by the “One Way Permit” (OWP) scheme (Bacon-Shone, 2009). Usually, these families needed to wait for 4-5 years before reunification (Legislative Council Subcommittee to Study Issues Relating to Mainland-HKSAR Families, 2012). It was not uncommon for children to be born before the Mainland wives obtained residency in Hong Kong. In the hope that their children could get better education, medical treatment, and future development in Hong Kong, most of the Mainland wives willingly chose to migrate to Hong Kong even when they had marital conflicts with their husbands before migration or they might experience a depreciation in living standards after migration to Hong Kong. Besides, once they obtained Hong Kong residency, their hukou (household registration record) in Mainland China would be canceled, making them no longer eligible to enjoy the social benefits provided by the Chinese government. Migrating to Hong Kong is thus a huge decision for immigrants from Mainland China.

Despite Hong Kong’s “handover” to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, cross-border marriages and families living between Mainland China and Hong Kong are comparable with transnational families given that a border exists between Mainland China and Hong Kong (Leung & Lee, 2005) and that the Immigration Department of Hong Kong continues to control and regulate the migratory inflow of Mainland Chinese under the Basic Law (Pong et al., 2014). Furthermore, a socio-economic disparity still exists between the two regions due to their uneven paces of socioeconomic development and the disparity in living standards between Mainland China and Hong Kong (Lin & Ma, 2008). Although Chinese immigrant women have the same ethnic background as Hong Kongers, they are nonetheless discriminated against and perceived as unproductive free riders who take advantage of Hong Kong citizens and exploit social welfare and public resources (Kung, 2013).

Regarding social welfare resources available to immigrants, the Hong Kong government provides a safety net of last resort for those who cannot support themselves financially to meet their basic needs, known as Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA). To be eligible for CSSA, the applicant must have been a Hong Kong resident for at least 7 years and have resided in Hong Kong continuously for at least 1 year immediately prior to the date of application. This 7-year restriction was later overruled by the court and shortened to 1 year in 2013. However, the respondents who participated in this study were affected by the original 7-year restriction, as they had migrated for marriage prior to 2013. Yet, the findings of the study could illuminate how such restrictions might affect the circumstances of battered immigrant women, as the data show that immigrant women are the most vulnerable in the first year after their arrival. In addition, new arrivals can apply for public rental housing if they are the spouse or the children (below 18 years of age) of the tenants, even if they have not resided in Hong Kong for 7 years (Legislative Council Subcommittee to Study Issues Relating to Mainland-HKSAR Families, 2010). However, unless more than half of the family members have remained in Hong Kong for more than 7 years, public housing apartments would not be made available. Those who are in need can also apply for housing assistance under the Compassionate Rehousing (CR) Scheme. Victims of domestic violence can apply for temporary residence in public rental housing units with a “Conditional Tenancy” under the CR Scheme. Nevertheless, the 7-year restriction also applies, and only victims who have petitioned for divorce are eligible for Conditional Tenancy (Social Welfare Department, 2015). Although CSSA and housing assistance may be granted at the discretion of the Director of Social Welfare to those who do not meet the residence requirement (Social Welfare Department, 2015), many newly arrived marriage migrants are unaware of this exception and the overall application procedures for social welfare and housing assistance in Hong Kong.

Simply put, immigration and social welfare policies in Hong Kong have a significant impact on the disempowerment, marginalization, and involuntary dependence of Mainland immigrant wives on their Hong Kong husbands. Given its saliency, this study treats marriage migration as a distinctive system that parallels gender, class, and culture under the intersectional framework, and examines how they jointly contribute to the vulnerability of female marriage migrants in Hong Kong.

Research Method

This study is based on 15 semi-structured in-depth interviews of female Mainland Chinese women who migrated to join their Hong Kong husbands. Among the 15 interviewees, 11 were recruited by convenience sampling through a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides emergency and shelter services for battered women and their children, and the remaining four were recruited through another NGO that provides services for cross-border families and new immigrants. The study’s only criteria were that the respondents migrated to Hong Kong to join their Hong Kong husbands and had experienced abuse by their husbands in the year prior to the study. Again, as this study specifically focuses on marriage migration, Mainland women who did not migrate to Hong Kong as a direct result of their marriage to a Hong Kong man—for example, those who migrated with their parents as children or teenagers and those migrated for education and work as adults—are not considered marriage migrants and thus not included in this study.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the respondents between 2006 and 2013. Research ethics approval was obtained. On average, the one-on-one interviews lasted for 1-2 hr. Before and during the interviews, the real and full names were not requested from the respondents, and all personal identifiers were removed. All names used in this article are pseudonyms. Only the principal investigator and the author have access to the interview transcripts and recordings. This study analyzes the full verbatim transcripts of the interviews. Line-by-line coding analysis allowed us to search for the major themes and patterns that emerged from the interviews.

The appendix indicates the socio-demographic backgrounds of the 15 interviewees. Their ages ranged from 29-52, while their years of migration to Hong Kong ranged from 1-17 years. All of the interviewees had at least one child. Nine respondents had been in relationships with their (ex-)husbands or male partners for about 10 years. At the time of the interview, four respondents were still living with their husbands/male partners, another three were separated from their husbands/male partners, and the remaining eight had already divorced. The longest relationship had lasted for over 30 years. Most husbands of the respondents had engaged in various unseemly behaviors, such as gambling, smoking, drinking, child abuse, or extra-marital affairs.

Results

In this section, I first explain how immigration produces a series of institutional, legal, and social barriers that limit marriage migrants’ access to social networks, resources, and citizenship rights, which increased their difficulties in escaping from abusive relationships. I then go on to demonstrate how marriage migration, as the point at which immigration, class, gender, and culture intersect, forms a multifaceted system that not only increases the marriage migrants’ vulnerability to IPV but also cripples marriage migrants’ ability to manage IPV.

Immigration and IPV

One core feature of marriage migration is immigration—geographic relocation—of the marriage migrants. Due to norms of patrilocality, marriage migrants are expected to cross borders to reside in the husband’s home. Yet, after immigration to the husband’s country of residence, marriage migrants are very often socially isolated as they are geographically distant from their original social networks (Erez et al., 2009; Raj & Silverman, 2002; Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). With respect to the case in Hong Kong, Choi et al. (2012) reported that marriage migrants who marry Hong Kong men have significantly lower levels of perceived support from their families and friends. Immigrating to a foreign environment where they are unfamiliar with the language, local culture, and geographic setting, marriage migrants are exceedingly vulnerable to their husbands’ emotional, economic, and physical control. The following respondent recalled how she suffered from social isolation:

He knew my weaknesses. He knew that I had no friends and that I had to rely on him. I couldn’t go to visit my relatives and friends because I didn’t have their addresses. My mother knew that he always borrowed money from others, so she didn’t give me their addresses. (Meng, age 36, separated, a migrant for 3 years, with one child)

Marriage migrants who had recently migrated to Hong Kong were especially vulnerable if they had not yet obtained a legal identity certificate:

At that time I still had not obtained my identity documentation. And I didn’t have any relatives here. They were all back in my hometown. I didn’t know what to do as I had no friends to whom I could turn. I felt so anxious. . . . This was not the first time that he kicked me out. I remember that the first time I came to Hong Kong, he kicked me out of the house at midnight. Where was I supposed to go? . . . I hadn’t yet received my identity card, not even the application form or the visa to return to the Mainland. Where could I go? Unlike in the past, even if he kicked me out, I could still return to the Mainland. (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

Upon immigration, marriage migrants’ hukou (household registration records) in Mainland China were canceled. When violence occurred, they were trapped in a dilemma because they could neither return to Mainland China as a citizen nor could they remain with their abusive husbands in Hong Kong. Having access to shelter then became a prerequisite for leaving an abusive relationship. Yun highlighted her fears of being left homeless:

It was hard to accept that he battered me and kicked me out of the house. He locked the door so I could not return home. If he yelled at me, I could stay away. If he beat me, I could hide in another room. I could still sleep in another bedroom, as there were two bedrooms. But if he kicked me out, I really had no idea where I could go. After several times, I was afraid of going to Hong Kong. If it were not for my son’s education, I would never have gone to Hong Kong with a one-way permit. (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

Notwithstanding the limited number of shelters available to battered women in Hong Kong, ignorance about available local social services undermined the ability of marriage migrants to seek help. This was particularly the case for those who had recently immigrated, most of whom were unaware of the availability of shelters and social services. The following account indicates how the fear of homelessness and the lack of access to social services interacted to create a feeling of predicament and a sense of hopelessness among the marriage migrants:

I was not aware that I could run away as I didn’t know that there are shelters. I could have returned to my hometown, but then I would have had to leave my daughter behind, and I wouldn’t be able to see her anymore. This created pressures as neither alternative could solve my problems. It was at that time that I began to feel hopeless and began to think about committing suicide. (Meng, age 36, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

Although the Hong Kong government provides a safety net for those who cannot support themselves financially, the 7-year residence requirement limited access for many marriage migrants. The same restriction applies to housing assistance from the government. As a result, for those women who had not lived in Hong Kong for 7 years, lacked economic resources or knowledge about the policies, and/or who have not yet decided to divorce their husbands, the fear of homelessness and the fear of being separated from their children discouraged them from leaving the abusive marriage. Even among those who have resided in Hong Kong for more than 7 years, if they decided to leave their husbands, the prolonged process of filing for a divorce, settling the custody issues, and applying for a separate public housing apartment would force them to remain in the same flat with their husbands until all of these procedures have been completed. All these institutional barriers have impeded battered immigrant women from seeking safety and leading independent lives.

In addition, due to the quota system, Mainland marriage migrants have to wait for 4-5 years before they can legally migrate to Hong Kong. Comparing the number of years since immigration to the length of time in their relationships with their husbands, it appears that most respondents had waited for 4-9 years before they could migrate, with the longest waiting period being about 20 years. This long-term separation between Mainland women and their Hong Kong partners not only affects marital and parent–child relationships but also provides an opportunity for the husbands to conceal their personal problems, such as excessive gambling, debts, extra-marital affairs, and violent behavior, from their wives prior to reunification. Although Mainland wives could visit their husbands in Hong Kong using Two Way Permits, which are subject to regular renewals, the Hong Kong husbands could still easily conceal their problems as they are completely in charge of their immigrant wives’ daily lives when the latter visit Hong Kong. Many respondents revealed that prior to migration, they had been clueless about their husbands’ problems in Hong Kong. For example, Mei (age 37, separated, a migrant for 6 years, two children) discovered that her husband had already married another woman in his hometown before she migrated to Hong Kong. Nevertheless, in many cases, even if marriage migrants had experienced abuse from their Hong Kong husbands back in the days when they still lived in China, for the sake of the children, they still chose to migrate to Hong Kong to provide an intact family and a better future for their children.

The Intersection of Immigration and Gender Inequality in Marriage Migration

Due to hypergamy—a marriage norm of “women marrying up into a higher socioeconomic group” (Constable, 2005, p. 10)—gender inequality between female marriage migrants and their local husbands appears to be one of the most important factors contributing to the victimization of marriage migrants. It is evident that Hong Kong husbands are older and more educated, whereas Mainland Chinese wives are more likely to have a lower status in the family (Pong et al., 2014). In our interviews, almost all of the immigrant women from Mainland China revealed extremely unequal gender power relations with their husbands. Male dominance, as embodied in their husbands’ exclusive economic, domestic, and decision-making authority within the family, as well as in the traditional familial patriarchal norms, was often the major theme in the accounts of the battered interviewees:

He claimed, “I am the owner of this house; you have no authority to make any decisions. If I want you to live here, then you have to stay here. If I don’t want you to live here, then you have to leave.” He knew that I had no friends [in Hong Kong] so that I had to rely on him. He knew my weaknesses so this is how he treated me. (Meng, age 36, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

He announced, “The woman whom I marry should be as docile as a sheep, and should never talk back.” (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

Female marriage migrants are usually disadvantaged in terms of social status and resources compared with their male partners due to hypergamy. Their isolation and lack of resources make it easy for their husbands to exert exclusive control over any resources that might provide them legal, financial, or social support (Menjívar & Salcido, 2002). This in turn forces marriage migrants to depend solely on their husbands, further increasing their husbands’ authority and power to control them. Most of the time, such economic control is not only imposed on the women but also on the children. Some of the respondents were only given barely sufficient money for daily subsistence. Hong Kong husbands usually did that out of jealousy and distrust. Due to the socioeconomic disparities between Hong Kong and Mainland China, marriage migrants from Mainland China are stereotypically perceived to be gold-diggers who marry Hong Kong men for citizenship and economic enhancement, and would leave their husbands after they migrated to Hong Kong. Wen and Yun noted,

He firmly believed the perception that Mainland women will leave their Hong Kong husbands after they move to Hong Kong. He would always say: “I know you will leave,” but he never reflected on what he had done to me. (Wen, age 28, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

He would mutter, “People always said, ‘Don’t sponsor your Mainland wife to migrate to Hong Kong; she will leave after she arrives.’ . . . Now that you have your identity documentation, you will run away. . . . ” He said a lot of crap. He was greatly affected by how people perceive Mainland women. I rebutted, “If you behaved better, why would I want to leave you?” (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

Not only does this stereotype affect the perceptions that local men have about their immigrant wives, it also creates intense insecurities and sexual jealousies among the husbands, which provides them a pretext to blame their immigrant wives for leaving them. Sexual jealousies and distrust became the major triggers of marital conflicts in cross-border marriages. Eleven out of the 15 respondents endured irrational suspicions by their husbands. Some abusive husbands deployed tactics similar to what Evan Stark (2009) has termed “coercive control”—that is, tactics that aim to deprive the autonomy and personal liberty of their immigrant wives. An example of coercive control tactics include physically trapping their wives at home and denying their right to find a job, to confine them to domesticity and to ensure that their wives’ fidelity and sexuality are theirs exclusively. For instance, Meng (age 36, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child), who was not allowed to work, described herself as “a bird in a cage.” Others also reported having suffered from constant surveillance by their husbands and repeated interrogations about their alleged infidelities. In most cases, the husbands’ distrust and humiliating attacks resulted in a sense of demoralization of the marriage migrants. Such an atmosphere of suspicion led to hyper vigilance, which deeply agonized the marriage migrants:

Sometimes he would claim that I wanted to leave him, and he would interrogate me about whether I had someone on the side. In fact, I seldom went out. Sometimes I wanted to see how my son behaved at school by standing outside the school gate, but he ordered that I return home immediately. I could not even go to the park with my neighbors. He forbade me to go, and he would never accompany me. He distrusted me and thought that I was unfaithful. This may be because he did not do very well [in his previous marriage], so he had lost confidence in women and therefore always created stories in his mind. (Yang, age 36, divorced, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

He never trusted me, and we often quarreled. I have to admit that our relationship was not good. He was a male chauvinist, and he forced me to obey him in every respect. We had always had problems, but I chose to endure them, hoping that he would change. However, he did not change, and the situation only became worse. He first assaulted me when he suspected that I had another man on the side. (Wen, age 28, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

Being prevented from establishing social ties outside of their relationships made these women feel lonely and depressed. In the long run, they suffer from increased feelings of helplessness, incompetence, frustration, and depression, which further decrease their motivation and ability to seek either formal or informal help. Eight of our interviewees were already suffering psychologically and believed that they had no way of escaping their misfortunes, eventually leading to feelings of self-isolation and, finally, suicidal thoughts:

It was as if you had reached a dead end. You would go off into wild flights of fantasy. . . . You were so out of touch with reality that there was no way you could come up with any solutions. Others couldn’t help you. I felt so helpless that suicidal thoughts would flash across my mind every single minute. . . . There was only one step for me [to jump off the building]. (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

Driven beyond the limits of forbearance, these women eventually realized that leaving their abusive husbands was the only way out. While official data on the suicide rates of marriage migrants are unavailable, respondents in this study were awakened by the realization that they needed to survive to ensure the safety of their children. This awakening had provided them the resilience and momentum to escape their situations. Nonetheless, in a victim-blaming environment, the divorced immigrant victims were often blamed for destroying their families and were ostracized by their host communities. For example, Yun bemoaned,

Now that I have divorced my husband, many people think “this woman left her husband as soon as she arrived in Hong Kong”—they depict me as the kind of person who is heartless and pitiless. (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant about 1 year, one child)

The dual stigmatizations of being a marriage migrant and a single mother heightened the fears of those who were still trapped in violent relationships, making them hesitant to seek help. Some of these battered marriage migrants had wanted to seek help from their social networks back in their hometowns, but they were frustrated that people in their hometowns perceived of them as rich and prosperous housewives of Hong Kong men:

Being a migrant wife is miserable. People in your hometown envy your marriage with a Hong Kong man. They think that Hong Kong men marrying Chinese women are rich, but this is just a fantasy. In fact, I was really poor but I still had to pretend as if we were leading a prosperous life. It was a really tough time. When I returned to my hometown, I heard a lot of rumors that devastated me. . . . Even if you want to return and work in your hometown, no one will hire you because they think “you are rich.” Being an immigrant woman is really tough; you have to bear the pressures from your hometown, you are unfamiliar with the Hong Kong environment, and your husband controls, restricts, and isolates you from your friends. It is like you are besieged. You have so many worries and anxieties, and you don’t even know how to call the police. (Meng, age 36, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

Very often, the discrepancy between the unrealistic expectations in their hometowns and the shameful fact of being abused propels marriage migrants to remain silent and continue to play the “happy family game” in front of their family, friends, and relatives back home. With both formal and informal sources of social support blocked, these marriage migrants had no choice but to stay in their abusive relationships.

The Intersection of Immigration, Economic Marginalization, and Gender Inequality in Marriage Migration

Social class and economic resources are intimately linked: One’s social position or socioeconomic status (SES) directly affects one’s ability to acquire resources. A substantial body of research has established a significant relationship between IPV and socioeconomic factors (e.g., Hotaling & Sugarman, 1986; Resko, 2010). In particular, Resko (2010) suggested that structural inequalities between people of different social classes intensify the stresses and frustrations in the deprived lives of those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, subsequently increasing the occurrence of abusive behavior and violence in relationships. In other words, men with lower income levels, educational levels, and occupational statuses appear to be more likely to abuse their wives (Hotaling & Sugarman, 1986; Resko, 2010). Given that cross-border families tend to be economically disadvantaged and that Hong Kong men who marry Mainland women tend to have less education and lower occupation status, economic deprivation appears to be one of the significant factors that trigger conflicts with and violence against marriage migrants. In our interviews, six respondents reported being physically abused during those periods when their husbands were either unemployed or underemployed. The situation would become worse when both the husbands and the immigrant women were unemployed. Diminished economic resources and lowered living standards easily elicit conflicts in spousal relationships. A majority of the respondents revealed that conflicts over money were the major trigger for physical assaults. Moreover, almost all of the immigrant women’s husbands were engaged in numerous unhealthy addictions, such as gambling, drinking, or smoking. Seven respondents had husbands who had run up substantial debts and two had husbands who had officially declared bankruptcy. With all of these employment and financial problems, economic concerns became a major burden on the family. More than half of the respondents had depleted all their earnings and savings to repay the debts of their husbands and to make ends meet. The financial problems were further exacerbated when marriage migrants relocated to Hong Kong, became pregnant, or gave birth. As time passed, financial insecurities and economic disempowerment gave rise to their husbands’ sense of inferiority. They would feel their instrumental and breadwinner role in the family being challenged and experience a crisis of masculinity:

Unlike women, men have to work in order to support the family. Losing his job had already made him frustrated and hot-tempered. Conflicts and quarrels occurred frequently, which gradually turned to fights and even physical assaults. (Cai, age 39, married and still living with her husband, a migrant for 6 years, one child)

Although in this section I focus mainly on the intersection between class and immigration, the above quote also highlights the intersection between class and gender, for the provision of resources is intertwined with norms of masculinity. This also explains why work-related stresses, such as unemployment or chronic poverty, are particularly stressful for men (Resko, 2010). As these frustrations continue to accumulate, the probability of husbands using violence also rises because these frustrated men want to reclaim their dominance and supremacy when they lack resources or other means to do so. In terms of the wives, immigrant women from Mainland China usually have lower educational levels and fewer economic resources than their male partners (Lin & Ma, 2008). Even if some of them may have had decent jobs back in China, their qualifications and work experience were not transferable to Hong Kong. Language barriers and discrimination against new immigrants further compounded their difficulties in finding employment in Hong Kong. As a result, disadvantaged immigrant wives were subject to direct or indirect financial incentives to remain in abusive relationships:

I was about to call the police and he yelled, “Go call the police. This is not the first time, continue to call the police as much as you like. How will you feed yourself and our son if I am arrested?” Then I thought, I don’t have a job and I still have to take care of my son. I am completely dependent on him for support, so how can I live without him? I felt really helpless; whatever I did, I had to pander to all his likings. I was always afraid that he would lose control, and I always feared that he would become angry. (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

It should be noted that the social disadvantages experienced by these immigrant women are likely the result of the complex intersection of immigration, class, and gender, given the existing gender segregation in the Hong Kong labor market which has relegated many women, especially immigrants, to unprotected and low-paying jobs (Ngo & Ngai, 2009). Unless they can find jobs that provide sufficient wages and affordable child care, any attempt to escape from domestic violence in the home would result in poverty, especially when the battered marriage migrants are economically controlled by their partners. This scarcity of economic resources compels a considerable proportion of immigrant women to seek employment to make ends meet. Nine out of the 15 respondents worked either full- or part-time to maintain a living. Yet their employment, or attempts to find employment, produced extra stresses for the husbands, which intensified the husbands’ frustrations:

I had expected to find a job after coming to Hong Kong. I thought that maybe it was because I didn’t work that he treated me so poorly. I hoped that after I found a job, we would not argue as much as we did on the Mainland and that he would no longer mistreat me. I was scared, but I hoped, and in fact I expected that my finding a job would improve our relationship. But he grumbled a lot and said, “In the past, my wife depended on me. Now, after I have lost my job, I have to rely on my wife.” His tone expressed his deep feelings of inferiority. (Yun, age 29, divorced, a migrant for about 1 year, one child)

Hong Kong husbands feel threatened when their wives engage in paid employment in two respects. First, paid employment means that the immigrant wives work outside of the home and will have contact with others, especially men. Because of the perception that Mainland women will run away as soon as they obtain Hong Kong residency, local men marrying Mainlanders are quick to suspect their immigrant wives of unfaithfulness. In another respect, employment as a source of access to resources symbolizes gender-related economic power (Resko, 2010). Culturally, gender-based power differentials favoring men are inscribed in stereotypical gender roles. The sexual division of power incorporates the imbalances among men and women created by means of control, authority, and coercion in heterosexual relationships (Resko, 2010). The reversal of gender roles and power might provoke a violent-prone man to engage in violence to compensate for his relative loss of dominance (Pyke, 1996). Previous studies in both the West (e.g., Menjívar & Salcido, 2002) and Hong Kong (Cheung & Choi, 2010) reveal that women’s entry into the ranks of paid employment might increase the likelihood of abuse by their husbands as the men feel that their identities as the breadwinners in the family are being threatened. Altogether, husbands’ selectivity and their subsequent sense of inferiority associated with their relatively low SES further intensified their anxiety of having a runaway bride, which eventually turned into agitation when they could not psychologically balance their need to maintain male honor and the need to obtain more economic resources through the paid employment of the wife. This echoes the previous section on why Hong Kong men marrying Mainland Chinese women used tactics of coercive control and other forms of abuse to subordinate women to retain their male supremacy. Again, although the focus here is on the interaction between immigration and economic marginalization, gender norms and class also interact to increase the likelihood of violence use among resource-deprived Hong Kong husbands.

The Intersection of Immigration, Culture, and Gender in Marriage Migration

Although IPV occurs across cultures, different cultural values and norms shape the diverse understandings of violence as well as the victims’ responses to violence (Fernández, 2006). In our cases, although the marriage migrants have migrated to Hong Kong, they are still attached to their natal families in their hometowns where traditional Chinese culture is deeply rooted in conventional patriarchy and collectivism (Yu, 2005). In the tradition of collectivism, the individual represents the family, the clan, and even the entire community. Family harmony is regarded as the responsibility of the family members who are not supposed to bring disgrace to the family. Among the Chinese, family honor and glory are highly valued, and saving face is of utmost importance because it protects both the individual and the family from shame (Yu, 2005). Because violence is considered to be a type of shame, some battered marriage migrants will choose to remain silent to protect their natal families from being disgraced and losing face. But hiding these shameful incidents will only further intensify their feelings of isolation from their natal families. Some battered wives described themselves as “splashed water”—a reference to the Chinese tradition that married daughters are not supposed to return to their mothers’ home. These deeply rooted cultural ideologies that are laden with gender connotations restrain the abused women from leaving their partners or exposing their abuse for fear of bringing shame to their families. Furthermore, even if the battered immigrant wives wish to leave their husbands, they will need emotional and material support from their natal families. Yet, to avoid criticism and family disgrace, their immediate and extended family members likely will not be supportive. Instead, they might condone or trivialize the abuse, or even persuade or coerce the battered women to remain silent and not to seek divorce:

My mother always said: “Time flies. Twenty years is just like the blink of an eye.” She didn’t want me to divorce, so I tolerated him for a long time so that I could avoid divorce. (Meng, age 36, separated, a migrant for 3 years, one child)

My mother-in-law and father-in-law told me: “We will jump into the river if you insist on not returning [to your family]. We will die in front of your very own eyes.” One time, close to the Chinese New Year, they threatened me again: “You have to come home to celebrate the New Year, otherwise you will see us at our funerals.” My parents tried to persuade me to give him another chance. (Mei, age 37, separated, a migrant for 6 years, two children)

The trivialization of violence by one’s in-laws or family members might exacerbate the abuse, because in effect they are condoning the husbands’ abusive acts and creating the perception that the abuse is justified or the perpetrator will not face any consequences for his behavior (Erez et al., 2009). The unsupportiveness further prevents battered immigrant wives from leaving their abusive relationships, as their extended families may be the only people whom they know in Hong Kong. Even if battered immigrant women are willing to seek formal support, it usually translates into separation from the husband and/or alienation from the family. Both of these consequences are seriously condemned in Chinese societies. Unlike the Western context where the conjugal family is the primary relationship, in the Chinese context, the conjugal family is intimately tied to the extended family (Chiu & Choi, 2015). It is paradoxical that although married daughters are not supposed to return to their natal families, the natal families appear to be the last resort for battered women to receive emotional and material support after leaving an abusive marriage. Yet, norms of saving face and family intactness, the trivialization of violence, and the pressures from their extended families to endure have trapped battered immigrant women in a situation of dual marginalization and oppression. Gradually, some of these women come to accept the violence and abuse as their fate and life misfortune. Facing these dilemmas, they “dare not to tell and dare not to think” (An, age 38, married but living in a shelter, a migrant for 17 years, 2 children).

Discussion and Conclusion

By using the case of female marriage migrants in Mainland China–Hong Kong cross-border marriages, I documented how battered marriage migrants struggled through their marital problems and victimization perpetrated by their abusive Hong Kong husbands in the context of marriage migration. The co-ethnic background of the cross-border spouses in this study has enabled us to disentangle the effects of immigration from that of race/ethnicity. This facilitated us to conceptualize how marriage migration as a multifaceted system generates distinct and profound impacts on the life circumstances of female marriage migrants. I underscored the intersectional nature of IPV and illustrated how marriage migration encompasses a constellation of immigration barriers, legal insecurities, gender inequalities, economic disadvantages, and cultural constraints, which not only increases the vulnerability of marriage migrants but also traps battered marriage migrants in abusive marriages. These factors do not exist independently. Rather, they are “interrelated and intricate barriers” (Erez et al., 2009, p. 51) that simultaneously oppress battered marriage migrants and undermine their ability to protect themselves.

The findings in this study reveal several risk factors intrinsic to cross-border marriage that underpin the intersectionality of IPV against marriage migrants. First, the hypergamous nature of cross-border marriage intensified gender inequalities between the marriage migrants and their husbands in terms of socioeconomic resources and ideological traits. On the men’s side, their less favorable SES has squeezed them out of the domestic marriage market. To retain their male supremacy, they turn to the cross-border marriage market to look for a submissive wife. On the women’s side, women from less developed regions are inclined to marry men with higher SES for economic security and social mobility, not only for themselves but also for their families back home. These logics have encouraged low-SES men to marry foreign women with even lower SES. As a result, the gendered power relationship between the cross-border couple is highly skewed toward men. Situated in this unequal power relationship, with inadequate economic resources, marriage migrants are unwillingly dependent on their husbands, which in turn traps them in abusive marriages when violence occurs.

Second, although men marrying local women with a working class background might encounter economic problems and experience the crisis of masculinity in a similar fashion, the discourse of runaway brides and the demeaning stereotypes imposed on cross-border marriage migrants from Mainland China bring additional risks to the marriage. They cause husbands to be inordinately jealous and to distrust and be suspicious of their migrant wives. All these provided strong motivations and “legitimate” reasons for husbands to subordinate and/or discipline their wives. Given that their wives’ infidelity would tremendously harm their male pride, suspicious husbands are prone to use tactics of coercive control to restrict the liberties of the marriage migrant to keep the fidelity of the wife. When tactics of coercive control are deemed ineffective, husbands resort to even more severe forms of violence.

Third, the immigration context associated with cross-border marriage migration intersects with gender, class, and culture to create institutional, legal, economic, social, and cultural barriers to marriage migrants. On one hand, while geographical relocation weakens the degree of social support that female marriage migrants can obtain, the immigration and social policies specifically directed at the immigration of marriage migrants have significant impacts on the marital relationships of cross-border couples (e.g., long-term separation due to the prolonged immigration process) and the extent of protection (including economic and housing assistance) that marriage migrants can get from the state in their host society, based on their transitional legal status. On the other hand, failing to meet the expectations of their social contacts back home to “successfully” marry a rich foreign man, and the associated shame of being abused, have hindered battered marriage migrants from seeking help from informal ties in their hometowns. Even if the battered marriage migrants do turn to them, these ties may not be supportive given their traditional cultural ideologies about family and marriage. All these add structural and systemic barriers to marriage migrants, making leaving the abusive marriage an exceedingly daunting task.

In essence, it is this intricate intersectional context that distinguishes marriage migration from other types of migration that is not based on a marital contract between a local groom and a foreign bride. This also explains why cross-border marriage appears to be more problematic than marriages between two locals. Although the impact of IPV on the physical and mental well-being of marriage migrants is hardly quantifiable, the intersectionality of IPV generates adverse effects in a multiplicative and progressive way and creates “an interlocking prison from which there is little escape” (Hancock, 2007, p. 65). This carries important implications for policy makers and service providers. As the sources of oppression against marriage migrants are not monolithic, tackling one barrier may not be effective or sufficient in solving their problems. Rather, it may create unintended consequences that might further increase their risks of victimization. For example, tackling problems of resource scarcity might induce the perceived crisis of masculinity on the men’s side if the wife becomes the main family provider or possesses more economic resources than her husband. Furthermore, even if these financial difficulties were resolved, the marriage migrants would still have to confront a series of cultural and social barriers when they decide to leave. Policy makers and service providers need to be cognizant of these possible unintended consequences by recognizing the intersectional nature of IPV. They also need to design appropriate measures to help IPV victims who do not want to leave the marriage, given that traditional cultural ideologies play an important role in constraining the marriage migrants from leaving the family.

Hypergamous cross-border marriage is not peculiar to the Mainland China–Hong Kong context. In general, the analysis of the nature and features of cross-border marriage migration can build on the literature on gender, migration, and the intersectionality of violence against women, and shed light on cases of IPV against immigrant women involved in hypergamous cross-border marriages. The cultural context discussed in this study can illuminate cases of IPV against marriage migrants in other Chinese societies within and outside of Asia, such as Macau and Taiwan, as well as Chinese diaspora communities in other parts of the world. As immigration appears to be a core oppressive system that intersects with other social structures to increase the vulnerability of marriage migrants, future studies should consider a systematic comparative approach to examine how policies and institutional procedures directed at the immigration of marriage migrants in different nation-states might have affected the circumstances and life chances of marriage migrants differently. In addition, while a majority of the literature focuses on the commodified nature of cross-border marriages that are arranged by commercial matchmaking agencies, the majority of Mainland China–Hong Kong cross-border marriages are formed through personal networks. Future research should compare how and why diverse ways of union formation of cross-border couples might differentially affect marital dynamics and alter the likelihood for marriage migrants to experience IPV.

The analyses presented here are nevertheless hampered by some limitations. First, respondents who participated in this study were contacted through two NGOs in Hong Kong. On one hand, this might exaggerate the difficult situations of the victims, as shelters or NGOs are usually the last resort for battered women. For those who have other network resources, such as family, friends, and relatives in Hong Kong or in Mainland China, they are supposedly not as socially isolated as those who seek help from shelters and NGOs. On the other hand, however, that this sample was collected through NGOs also implies that these respondents are already connected to social services and have obtained some assistance during their victimization. Therefore, the situation described in this article is not representative of the situation of the most socially disadvantaged group—that is, those who do not seek external help because they do not have access to social services. We can expect that the situation of the latter group is even more vulnerable. Even though these groups of victims may encounter similar institutional, social, economic, and cultural barriers, the processes of their help-seeking and the degrees of their disempowerment might not be the same. Sampling respondents outside shelters and NGOs would help clarify this. Second, respondents who participated in this study all come from lower or middle-lower class backgrounds. Although not all marriage migrants come from economically disadvantaged families, previous studies suggest that marriage migrants are more likely to come from poorer households in their host society. Nevertheless, the situation of battered marriage migrants from more affluent families has yet to be explored.

Footnotes

Appendix

Socio-Demographic Backgrounds of the Respondents and Their Husbands.

Name	Age	Husband’s age	Education and/or occupation	Husband’s education and/or occupation	Marital status (years of marriage)	Years of migration
Yun	29	39	Primary 5; PT jobs	Secondary school; bus driver, security guard	Divorced (>10)	~1
Wen	38	NA	Catering work	Clerk	Divorcing (>10)	~3
An	38	55	Restaurant waitress	NA	Married, in shelter (~7)	~17
Mei	37	46	NA	PT jobs	Separated, in shelter (NA)	~6
Yang	36	NA	PT jobs	Interior decoration	Divorced (~10)	~3
Meng	36	NA	Primary school; PT jobs	Day laborer	Divorcing (NA)	~3
Xin	52	NA	Secondary 2; housewife	NA	Separated (NA)	~12
Yan	51	54	Secondary 3; Cleaning jobs	Security guard	Divorced (30)	~10
Cai	39	52	Technical school; housewife	Construction work; currently unemployed	Married, co-residence (~11)	~6
Yin	The husband is 13 years older than the wife		Unemployed because of health problems	Taxi driver	Divorced (~10)	~6
Lin	40s	70s	Secondary 2; Dish washer at a restaurant	Doctor in Mainland; currently unemployed in Hong Kong	Married, co-residence (~0)	~3
Yi	32	46	Junior high school, housewife	Construction worker	Separated (19)	~3
Liu	39	48	Senior high school, housewife	PT jobs	Married, co-residence (11)	~5
Sze	42	65	Senior high school, housewife	Retired	Married, co-residence (6)	~1
Fang	40s	NA	PT jobs	NA	Divorced (~10)	~6

Note. PT = part-time.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Susanne Y. P. Choi and the two anonymous reviewers from Violence Against Women for their thoughtful comments, and the Harvard-Yenching Institute for the generous support.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the Hong Kong Research Grant Council (CUHK4667/05H).

Author Biography

Tuen Yi Chiu is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She was a visiting fellow at Harvard University from August 2014 to January 2016 under the fellowship program of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Her current research examines the gender dynamics, post-marital residence decision making, family functioning, parenting, and role of the state in Mainland China–Hong Kong cross-border families. She has also conducted research on intimate partner violence against young women in dating and cohabitating relationships in Hong Kong, and examined the role of in-laws in spousal violence against women in Chinese societies.

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