Lily Rosencrantz

Professor Warren
JSIS 202 AJ
17 October 2017
Short Paper 1:
Human action in the context of love and romance is dictated by much more than the
possibility of material or monetary gain as instrumentalist theory would suggest. Factors
including community values, cultural norms, and regionalism have significant influence on who
and why people marry, as a marriage will not affect only the wedded couple, but their families
and how they are regarded within society as well. It is because of this that instrumentalist theory
is an inadequate theory of human action; the storyline of Ha Jins Waiting exemplifies this
through the couples that form and dissolve for reasons other than the prospect of gaining money,
power, wealth, or control over others.
The hypothetical pairing of Shuyu and Lin Kongs brother, Ren Kong, would make a
couple that represents instrumentalist values. These two are of the same social status, both
having been raised in a rural environment with values from Old China. Each partner in this union
would gain from the relationship. Ren Kong would gain Shuyus labor as a caretaker for his
parents, as a mother to children they would have, and as a homemaker. Through this transaction,
Ren would also gain a position of greater power, and control over Shuyu, two of the factors
motivating people to action according to instrumentalist thought (Warren Lecture). Shuyu would
gain through having a husband to fulfil her basic needs like providing her with housing and
feeding her, and give her children who would later help her run the household and tend to the
family plot. While this may seem less conventionally like an instrumentalist reason for coupling,
Shuyus gain would be great within the Old China framework within which she lives. Being
given companionship, housed, and fed by her spouse would be valuable and increase her wealth
through a good quality of life, if not through direct monetary support. This pairing of Shuyu and
Ren Kong, both uneducated rural people, would be different from the relationship between Lin
Kong and Shuyu in Waiting.
Lin and Shuyu are a more contrasting couple than Ren and Shuyu would be. Lin Kong
and Shuyu marry because their parents set up their union with their own traditional ideals in
mind. For Lins parents this is an action following instrumentalist theory, as it benefits them in
that they gain a caretaker, increasing their quality of life in old age. This paring is not mutually
beneficial, as the pairing of Ren and Shuyu would be. This is because Lin is an educated city-
dweller, who has become versed in the ways of New China through education and life in the
army, and marrying Shuyu is to him a demotion in social status. Lins perceives to gain next to
nothing through his marriage to Shuyu, which is shown by his unwillingness to move his family
to the city, as he sees no use for them there, and by his embarrassment caused by Shuyus bound
feet. He also shows how he values very little his wife and daughter, as he spends a mere 10 days
with them each year. To Lin, they are a burden. For Ren Kong, Shuyu would be a beneficial
mate and homemaker, someone he would have control over, as well as of his same social class;
her bound feet would not be a reason for embarrassment as his upbringing in the countryside did
not teach him otherwise. For Shuyu, marrying Lin is beneficial in the sense that she is financially
supported. That said, it is not beneficial to her in that she lives without a husband for much of the
year while Lin is in Muji city, she does not gain the normal social position of a kept wife, and is
often alone and left to deal with the labor of running a household without a husbands help. For
Ren and Shuyu, coupling would be motivated not only by the parents organization and approval,
but by the fact that they would have similar backgrounds, and could relate to each other through
their shared understanding of life in the countryside. This would be an advantage to the couple,
as it would increase their level of understanding of each other as well. There are many factors
that affect with whom and why people couple, including where and when they live.
Lin Kong strictly adheres to the practices deemed culturally acceptable in the society he
lives in; these practices are not universal, and there are different practices from around the world
that are completely different while addressing a similar aspect of romance or courtship. In
Orthodox Judaism, two Jewish singles are introduced through a Shidduch, a system of Jewish
matchmaking. Two families facilitate this meeting to see if a couple is compatible, and either the
man or the woman in the pair may reject the other if they are not attracted to them, or do not
believe they are a good match. This contrasts with the pairing of Lin and Shuyu, as Lin protests
his paring with Shuyu, who he believes is ugly and simple; his protests are not an acceptable
reason for preventing the union, and the two are married. In modern America, especially among
liberal millennials, casual extramarital sexual relationships are normal, and hookup culture in
which sexual relationships do not have to be within a committed relationship is accepted. For Lin
and Manna Wu, extramarital sex is forbidden, and would have extreme consequences for both if
it were to occur, as the Chinese culture and the subculture within the Army Hospital would
enforce that they be punished for this deviance. In modern America divorce is not unusual,
countless reasons can be grounds for divorce, and the reason of lack of love in the relationship is
acceptable and common. In Lins and Shuyus case, divorce is almost unheard of in Goose
village, and it made no sense to anybody in the countryside to get a divorce because he didnt
love her (Jin 94). Between different time periods and locations what is the accepted culture
varies greatly, as there is no universal culture or set of societal values. This is what prevents the
world from being culturally flat, as the great degree of difference throughout the world and the
way people enforce their cultures and societal norms ensure that no one culture prevails, and that
there is no one way to act rationally in a cultural sense.
People do not act simply according to instrumentalism and rational choice theory. If they
did, culture would be much less important, and would dictate far less in society. Culture makes
people act in ways that might not be beneficial to them, but they act according to cultural norms
because actions to the contrary will be looked down upon by the rest of society, and potentially
punished.