Bihun (逼婚)

From the annual “so, when are you bringing someone home?” to arranged blind dates and threats of estrangement, Chinese marriage pressure runs on a spectrum: cuihun (“urging marriage,” the nagging end) through bihun (“forcing marriage,” the coercive end). Its fuel is family face and the duty to continue the line — for many parents, a child’s marriage is not a personal choice but an account they owe to relatives and ancestors.

For LGBTQ+ people this is often the single heaviest everyday pressure. The words tongqi and xinghun both describe lives bent around it. But being pressured does not shrink your options to a few bad ones: stalling is a legitimate strategy, and so is closing the topic (“we’re done with this for today”). You owe no one a coming-out to buy relief — whether, when, and to whom is yours to decide; safety first, it can wait. Practical scripts live in the family pressure guide.

Register note: everyday colloquial words. Cuihun is milder; bihun implies coercion.

Common misreading: calling every boundary “unfilial.” The line between care and control is whether your “no” is respected (see Filial piety).