填空题
The letter from a Chinese woman to her American friend reflected her torment and tears. "I told you I wish a baby girl, because nothing can compare with one"s love of a baby, especially mother and daughter," she wrote in broken English. Instead of bringing joy, however, the birth of a daughter was destroying her family. "My husband wants to divorce me," she continued. "When he knew the baby was a girl, he left quickly." Reluctant to blame only her husband, she pointed to her in-laws. "He is the only boy, so his having a son is more important for his parents," she explained. "Although he had been hoping for a boy, I never thought he would act like this."
Old attitudes die hard in a society that has been a bastion of male 21 for 22 centuries. Until a few decades ago, the drowning of 22 girls was tolerated in poor rural areas as an economic necessity. A girl was just another 23 to feed, another dowry to pay, a temporary family member who would eventually 24 to serve her husband"s kin. A boy, on the other hand, meant more muscle for the 25 work, someone to care for aged parents and bum offerings to ancestors.
The Communists 26 to change all that in 1949 by freeing women from the household, putting them to work in 27 and factories and giving them the right to inherit property. Suddenly a girl could have 28 economic value. Still, feudal tradition has resisted change in many 29 , and the government"s draconian one-child-per-couple population policy, 30 in 1979, has inflamed age-old prejudices against females. Rural and minority families 31 lie, cheat or pay fines in order to try a second pregnancy in the 32 of having a son. And female infanticide—plus its modem variation, the 33 of amniocentesis to identify female fetuses in order to abort them—continues. The problem is so 34 that government campaigns urge parents to "Love your daughter" and allow girl 35 to live.
Even in enlightened circles, condolences are in order for a couple 36 newborn is a girl. Over dinner in the Beijing apartment of a liberal-party cadre, a young 37 proudly passes around color photos of her infant son, lying spread-eagled on a 38 , his genitals prominently displayed. Seated beside her, the new mother of a baby girl 39 on in wistful silence. She carries no pictures. Jiang Junsheng, a 40 engineer in a Beijing auto-parts factory, says he wasn"t upset when his 41 child, a daughter, was born, but "my mother did not like it." That"s an 42 , says his wife Chen Yiyun, 50, a well-known sociologist. "His 43 would not take care of our daughter," she says. "Yet when my husband"s brother had a boy, she 44 him with attention."
Social observers believe a daughter"s lot will 45 as women become more valuable to China"s growing economy and as the one-child policy eventually makes every scion—male and female—precious to parents. Chen"s own daughter Jiang Xu, 19, reflects changing attitudes when she expresses her preference for a daughter: "To have a boy means happiness for a moment. To have a girl means a lifetime of good fortune."