In China, a migrant and a wife share something in common. Both, albeit in very different ways, are outsiders in a new community. From the perspective of local people, migrants are outsiders who bring with them different ways of speaking, seeing, and living. In the context of family life, women are similarly seen as literal and symbolic outsiders upon marriage. Sometimes, when women migrate and marry some distance away from their home village, these two statuses converge. Our paper studies the marriage experiences of these “double\|outsiders." Drawing on fieldwork completed in 1998, we examine migrant women’s marriage experiences in the Special Economic Zone of Zhangjiagang in Jiangsu Province. In our analysis, we begin with a description of the most likely kinds of marriages among migrant women in Zhangjiagang. Next, we discuss migrant women’s marriage experiences, highlighting the difficulties they describe. Finally, we describe the strategies they use in support of their marital and personal fulfillment.
