Gratitude Cannot Be Repaid with Marriage

Er Ge (二哥)

There are countless “true stories” online. Many have been edited and reshaped, and some may have begun as advertising scripts. From the material now available, there is no way to know how much of this story—the people involved, the earthquake, the woman’s education, the details of the marriage—is actually true. But authenticity is not the only issue here. Even if the entire story was invented, it is still promoting a set of values. And if the story is true, it turns an extremely complicated private relationship into a public moral example. So the question worth asking is not whether “this woman is foolish,” or whether “this old man is bad.” The real question is: What is this video telling young people?

According to the video, the girl lost both parents in an earthquake when she was eight. A deaf and mute man twenty years older than she was rescued her from the rubble. His face was injured while saving her. He later took her home, raised her for thirteen years, and paid for her education. After she became an adult, the girl remained convinced that she had to repay him. She says it plainly: “Ever since I was little, I told myself that when I grew up, I had to make him the happiest man in the world. I had to marry him.”

That sentence matters. It shows that the logic of marriage constructed by the video is not simply about love. It is this: he saved me, he raised me, he sacrificed so much for me, so I have to marry him. Later comes an even more direct sentence: “I have to give you a child to carry on your family line.” She even folds her determination to have a child, and the risks of childbirth, into the duty of repaying him and completing his life as a man. At that point, this is no longer simply a love story. It becomes a complete chain of obligation: debt of gratitude—debt—marriage—childbearing—sacrifice. And it is precisely this chain of reasoning that deserves examination.

If two people are not related by blood and are both fully competent adults, an age gap alone is of course no reason to regard their marriage as unlawful. Nor should a modern society deny someone the right to love or marry because that person is disabled, poor, or poorly educated. So the problem is not, “How can a university graduate marry a deaf and mute man?” Criticism framed that way would miss the point. Disability is not a moral failing. Education is not a ranking of human worth. Rural life does not make anyone inferior.

The real question is what kind of relationship had already formed between these two people. When the girl was eight, the man was twenty-eight. He rescued her from the rubble and then took responsibility for her daily care for the next thirteen years. According to the video itself, he even wrote to her: “Little sister, your parents are gone. Why don’t you come with me from now on and let your big brother take care of you?” Whether she called him “big brother” or “father” is not really the point. What matters is the social role he occupied. An eight-year-old orphan facing a twenty-eight-year-old adult who is responsible for her food, clothing, education, safety, and upbringing is clearly not in an ordinary friendship between two equal adults, much less in a romantic relationship that existed from the beginning. It is, first of all, a relationship of caregiving and upbringing.

When an adult raises a child over many years, a very particular psychological structure develops: trust, dependence, gratitude, authority, a sense of safety, and a debt of care that cannot simply be measured in money. This is why human societies have never defined kinship ethics by DNA alone. Why can a family not simply say that because there is “no blood relation,” a father-daughter or sibling-like relationship may later be freely redefined as a romantic one? Because society has to protect the boundaries of caregiving itself. A child must be able to trust that the person raising her is caring for her because she is a child who needs care, not because that care might one day become a form of romantic or marital capital.

That is an important boundary of civilized life. So it would be inaccurate simply to call this case “incest” in the legal sense. But it is entirely reasonable to see ethical risks in the transformation of a quasi-familial or de facto caregiving relationship into a marriage. The issue is not their genes. It is the roles they occupied in each other’s lives for more than twenty years.

If the woman had said, “After I became an adult, I slowly realized that I had fallen in love with him,” that would at least be a narrative of romantic love. But the central sentence in the video is different: “He has done so much for me.... I have to marry him.”

The word “have to” exposes the problem. Love involves choice. A debt demands repayment. Once someone thinks, “Because you raised me, I have to marry you,” marriage is no longer simply an expression of love. It has become, at least in part, a means of repayment. And one of the central principles of modern marital ethics is precisely this: marriage must not become an instrument for paying off a debt.

If someone saved your life, of course you should be grateful. If someone raised you for thirteen years, there is even more reason for gratitude. But why must gratitude become marriage? There are many other ways to repay kindness. You can support someone in old age, pay for medical care, improve their housing, keep them company, help them live their later years with greater security and dignity, support them financially once you begin earning money, or bring them somewhere with better living conditions. Why, among all the possible forms of gratitude, does the video insist on presenting “marrying him” as the highest form of repayment?

Behind this story lies a very old idea: the most precious thing a woman can give is herself, followed by her body, her marriage, and her reproductive capacity. The traditional phrase, “I can never repay you for saving my life; I can only offer myself to you in marriage,” rests on exactly this logic. Such stories flourished in eras when women had little property, few professional opportunities, and limited economic independence. A woman had few resources available to exchange, so in the end what remained was marriage and her body.

But a modern society should be moving away from precisely this idea. A woman can have knowledge, a profession, expertise, the ability to earn an income, and the capacity to act in society. She has far more ways to repay kindness than women in the past did. If, after all that, we still tell her that the greatest repayment she can offer is to marry herself off, then what exactly has education changed?

The video’s story about childbirth is even more troubling. The older man worries that because of his age they should not have children. He fears that if he dies early, a child would become a burden on his wife. If this is true, it actually suggests that on this question he was at least thinking about her future. But the woman replies: “I have to give you a child to carry on your family line.” She then says that in order to have this child, “I was willing to risk my own life.” The host immediately responds: “What a great woman.”

The pattern is unmistakable. A woman first repays kindness through marriage, then through childbirth, and finally proves her love by risking her life in giving birth. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the moral worth. The more of her body she gives, the truer the love. This is no longer simply a story about affection between husband and wife. It is an old narrative of feminine virtue: a good woman repays kindness; a good wife gives her husband an heir; a good mother is willing to risk death in childbirth; and through such self-sacrifice, she becomes “great.”

The question is why a modern society should continue treating female self-sacrifice as the most moving proof of moral worth. If a woman wants a child because she herself wants one, there is no problem. But saying, “I have to give you a child to carry on your family line,” is something else. It turns reproduction from a life choice made by two people into a woman’s duty to continue a man’s bloodline. It follows exactly the same logic as “I have to marry him.” The marriage is no longer entirely hers, her body is no longer entirely hers, and reproduction is no longer entirely hers. All become instruments for repaying a debt of gratitude. That is what deserves the strongest criticism in the video.

If the story in the video is substantially true, then the older man did something extraordinary. A twenty-eight-year-old deaf and mute orphan, with limited means of his own, rescued an eight-year-old girl from the rubble and then raised her for thirteen years. That alone is deeply moving. It does not need the later marriage to make it meaningful.

What deserves admiration is the rescue and the years of care. If his purpose in raising the girl was to help her grow up, receive an education, and have a better life, then what would be the best possible outcome of that caregiving relationship? It should be the moment when she finally becomes independent. A truly successful caregiver does not make a child remain indebted forever. He helps the child reach the point where she no longer needs him. That is one of the most admirable things about education and caregiving.

So the best way for the woman to repay him after growing up might be to use the abilities she has acquired to improve both their lives. She could become a doctor. She could earn money. She could help him receive better medical care, improve their housing, provide for him in old age, and make sure he no longer has to depend on street vending to survive. This does not mean she must remain in a city, much less that rural life is somehow unworthy. Adults have every right to choose life in the countryside, just as they have every right to give up a high-paying career.

The real question is this: did she return because she genuinely wanted that life, or because she believed she owed him her life and therefore had to surrender the whole of her future?

The two choices may look exactly the same from the outside, but ethically they are very different. Real freedom is not about whether one lives in a city or the countryside. It is about whether one believes one has the right to choose.

Some people may say: they are both adults. One wants to marry, the other is willing. What is there to criticize? In law, voluntary consent between adults is of course one of the most important principles. But social ethics cannot stop at the word “consent,” because human desires do not grow in a vacuum. A girl who was rescued at eight by an adult, then raised and supported by him for thirteen years, cannot have exactly the same psychological relationship with him as she would with an ordinary romantic partner she first met at twenty-five.

She herself describes the psychological pressure: “He has done so much for me.” “I have to marry him.” Notice that she does not say, “I choose to marry him.” She says, “I have to.” That sense of obligation may come entirely from within her. No one may have forced her. But an internal sense of duty can also constrain freedom.

A person may sincerely believe: my parents raised me, so I have to live the life they arranged for me; my teacher helped me, so I must never disagree with my teacher; my workplace trained me, so I can never leave; someone saved my life, so the rest of my life belongs to him. All of these beliefs may arise voluntarily. They are still worth questioning.

So an important distinction has to be made: consent does not mean the absence of pressure created by indebtedness. Nor does it mean that every voluntarily chosen value should be held up as a social ideal. “She has the right to make this choice” and “we should applaud this choice” are entirely different statements.

At the same time, the ethical unease surrounding this marriage does not justify the conclusion that “this man rescued her from the beginning because he was waiting to marry her later.” There is no evidence for that.

The video even contains details pointing in the other direction. According to the woman, she was the one who persisted for years, while the older man did not immediately accept her proposal. Later, because of his age, he also suggested that they not have children, fearing that he might die early and leave her burdened with a child. These details at least mean that, without further evidence, we cannot claim that he began raising her at twenty-eight in anticipation of sex and marriage twenty years later. Such an accusation may feel satisfying to make, but it replaces the real ethical problem with an unsupported personal attack.

Nor should his deafness or lack of a middle-school education be used to portray him as an “inferior person.” Disability is not a defect of character, and education is not a qualification for marriage. If the criticism becomes, “How could a graduate of a prestigious university marry an uneducated deaf man?” it simply falls into another form of prejudice.

The real question has never been whether he is good enough for her. It is this: should someone who has raised another person for years accept marriage from that person when the marriage is explicitly offered as repayment?

If an adult once occupied the role of a father, older brother, or guardian, then even if the person he raised later expresses romantic love after reaching adulthood, he has a greater ethical responsibility to proceed cautiously than an ordinary romantic partner would. He knows that her love may be mixed with gratitude, dependence, admiration, a sense of safety, and even the feeling that “I owe you my life.” In such a situation, mature love may not always mean accepting the offer. Sometimes it means helping the other person ask a harder question: Do you love me, or do you feel that you have to repay me?

Watch the video from beginning to end and its structure is strikingly polished. The first layer is catastrophe: eight years old, an earthquake, both parents dead, two days under the rubble. The second is sacrifice: the man rescues the girl, a steel bar cuts his face, leaving him disfigured. The third is vulnerability: orphaned, deaf and mute, poor, little education. The fourth is reversal: the girl grows up, attends a prestigious medical university, and becomes young and accomplished. The fifth is dramatic contrast: a highly educated young woman, an older deaf and mute man, twenty years between them. The sixth is repayment: “I have to marry him.” The seventh is greater sacrifice: “I have to give you a child to carry on your family line.” “To have this child, I was willing to risk my life.” The eighth is the host’s final moral seal of approval: “What a great woman.”

Videos like this have another old habit: the greater the suffering, the truer the love; the poorer the life, the purer the feeling; the more a woman sacrifices, the greater her moral worth. It is a very old aesthetics of suffering.

But real poverty is not romantic. An older disabled person needs stable income, medical care, accessible services, and support in old age. A young person needs work opportunities, social participation, and the ability to live independently. A family needs housing, education, and health care. If the story ultimately tells viewers that the most moving ending is for a highly educated young woman to give up other possibilities and place herself back into the poverty from which she came, then we should ask a simple question: Why?

Of course, she is free to choose that life. But the media should not automatically equate “giving up the most” with “loving the most.” Hasn’t much of human civilization’s long effort been about allowing people to sacrifice themselves a little less?

What deserves admiration is not: “I am willing to keep suffering with you.” A better outcome would be: “I now have the ability to help us suffer less.”

Strip away all the details, and the video is really promoting a familiar view of life: when someone is good to you, you owe them; the greater the kindness, the greater the debt; the greater the debt, the more of yourself you should sacrifice; and in the end, even your body, your marriage, your reproductive choices, and your entire life may be offered in repayment.

This logic extends far beyond relations between men and women. Parents say: I raised you, so you should live the life I choose for you. A teacher says: I trained you, so how can you oppose me? A workplace says: the organization invested in you, so how can you leave? Some people even treat public services as favors bestowed from above, so that anyone who receives them supposedly loses the right to criticize.

It is all the same way of thinking: turning kindness into a claim of ownership. Healthy gratitude should work in exactly the opposite way. Good parents raise children so that one day those children can become independent. Good teachers help students so that one day the students can surpass them. And a truly selfless act of saving someone’s life should never become ownership over the rest of the rescued person’s life.

The best way to repay kindness is often not to return it to the same person in the same form, but to pass it on. Someone who was once rescued later rescues another person. Someone who received an education later helps others learn. Someone who was treated kindly learns to treat strangers with kindness. That is how gratitude stops being a private debt and becomes a public good.

If children and young people are going to see this video, what they need to hear is not “What a great woman,” nor simply the insult that “there must be something wrong with her head.” They need to understand several more important principles: if someone saved your life, you should be grateful, but your body is not a debt; if someone raised you, you should repay that care, but your life is not collateral; marriage may grow out of love, but it should not become a way to repay the cost of being raised; having children may be a shared desire between two partners, but it should not become a woman’s obligation to “give a man an heir”; sacrifice can sometimes be admirable, but sacrifice itself is not the same thing as virtue.

What young people should be taught is not to “offer themselves in marriage.” The best outcome after receiving help is not to remain forever on one’s knees before a benefactor, but to be able one day to stand on one’s own feet. Seen from this perspective, the most troubling part of the video may not even be the marriage itself. It is the assumption behind the story: that marrying her benefactor is still not enough, that a woman must also bear him a child and risk her life doing so before she can be called “a great woman.” That is a deeply outdated view of life and morality.

The dignity of a modern woman does not lie in proving how much she is willing to sacrifice for others. It lies in possessing a full and independent self: able to love and also to refuse; able to feel gratitude and also to remain independent; able to care for others while still knowing that her own life belongs to her.

Caregiving is caregiving. Gratitude is gratitude. Love is love. Marriage is marriage. They may, of course, meet in the same life, but they should not be used to settle accounts with one another. The civilized way to repay kindness is not to give yourself back to the person who helped you. It is to have been treated well, and therefore to become capable of passing that kindness on. If a society still needs “offering oneself in marriage,” “giving a man an heir,” and “risking one’s life to bear a child” as proof that a woman knows how to repay a debt of gratitude, then perhaps the person who most needs to be re-educated is not only the woman in the video.