The storyline of the story of the stone otherwise known as the red chamber dream suggests that the ideas of freedom of choice in marriage and arranged marriages are in absolute confronting positions. Best examples to demonstrate this outlook on love and marriage are affections between Bao-yu and Dai-yu in contrast with the affections between Bao-yu and Bao-chai. Love rarely develop at first sight, but takes a long time to shape, therefore arranged marriages by parents cannot and will not result in satisfying love life. The marriage of Bao-yu and Bao-chai is one example, when pure affection gets mixed up with the desire of power and wealth; it is likely that the couple will encounter emotional breakdowns which will pull the marriage eventually. In this case, Bao-yu renounced the world and adapted Buddhism not long after being married to Bao-chai. However, even falling in love freely takes time. When Bao-yu and Dai-yu first encountered, they were no older than thirteen of age. Although Bao-yu said “I have seen this cousin before…Well, perhaps not, but her face seems so familiar and I have the impression of meeting her again after a long separation.”, it was not love. It was a so-called feeling of “predestined” that Chinese believed, a godsent relationship, fallen right out of the sky. Their firm, solid love developed long after they’ve lived under the same roof for years. Bao-yu believed in predestinations made by a superior being, rather than arrangements made by his parents. As he and Dai-yu tries to fight this traditional force of arranged marriage, this issue becomes a continuous struggle for characters in Story of the stone and Cao Xue Qin himself, and even for young people today living in China.
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