CHINA and India, home to a third of humanity, both face a marriage crisis that will last for generations. A mere five years ago marriage patterns were normal in the two countries. Now in India 500 year-old laws are being revised to allow men to marry out of caste, village and state—while in China 50m “guanggun” (“bare branches”) look doomed to bachelorhood. What has led to this marriage squeeze? First, millions of women have gone “missing”. A generation ago, a preference for sons and the greater availability of prenatal screening meant first Chinese couples, then Indian ones, started aborting female fetuses and only giving birth to boys. At its extreme, in parts of Asia, more than 120 boys were being born for every 100 girls. Now, the generation with distorted sex ratios at birth is reaching marriageable age. The result is that men far outnumber women. If China had had a normal sex ratio at birth, its female population in 2010 would have been 720m. In fact, it was only 655m, compar...
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