中国日报网8月23日电 生活在中国西南部四川省的扎坝族人并不实行一夫一妻制，而是实行古老的走婚习俗。找到恋人的男子会在晚上爬窗进入女方的屋子过夜，然后次日天亮前离开。按照这种风俗，不管一对男女的关系维持多久，也不会住在一起。
不过，这种从古至今流传下来的习俗如今也发生了改变。据法新社8月22日报道，随着交通条件的改善和受教育机会的增加，再加上互联网、智能手机、社交媒体等的到来，曾经过着与世隔绝生活的扎坝人见识到了不一样的生活方式，走婚风俗逐渐消失。
计划生育是走婚风俗逐渐消失的原因之一。报道称，自上世纪80年代中国实行严格的计划生育以来，走婚便开始慢慢减少。相关政策也使走婚风俗难以维持。父母不领证结婚，孩子就不能上户口，而没有户口就没法上社保，也上不了学。
2004年，青海师范大学人类学家冯民（音译：Feng Min）对232户家庭做了调查研究，结果发现只有49%的扎坝人家还保留着走婚的风俗，在这些家庭中，孩子由母亲和母亲的兄弟抚养，而孩子的父亲可能也会提供一些经济帮助。
根据2010年人口统计数据，扎坝人社区里还住着13624人，现在无论去谁家，骑摩托车也不会超过半小时。而且，现在大多数延续走婚的人们也不会向以前那样抢信物了，恋人们会在微信上定好时间。
（编辑：高琳琳）
Nimble after years of practice, Trinley Norbu is used to hoisting himself three storeys up the side of a stone house and through the window for a one-night stand in his southwest China community.
While other young men squire their love interests to dinner or a movie, Mr. Norbu has honed his climbing skills, long the key to successful courtship for men in the small matrilineal Zhaba ethnic group of Sichuan province.
The Zhaba eschew monogamous relationships for traditional “walking marriages” — so-called since men typically walk to their rendezvous before slipping through their lover’s window.
But the 37-year-old truck driver and others in the remote area on the edge of the Tibetan plateau lament that the tradition is waning, as women increasingly want a bit more commitment from a man.
The arrival of the Internet, smartphones, livestreaming and popular Korean TV shows, along with improved transportation and education opportunities beyond the valley, have exposed the once isolated Zhaba to other lifestyles.
“Now the women especially have begun to want the same things as outsiders — fixed marriages, and financial assets such as a house or car,” he said.
Walking marriages began reducing in number in the 1980s as the government imposed strict family planning measures.
Government bureaucracy, too, is making it more difficult for the Zhaba’s walking marriages. Children born to parents without marriage certificates are not allowed “hukou”, all-important registration documents that allow them to access health care and schooling.
That process introduced the idea of “people as possessions” and caused a rise in notions of jealousy, an emotion once rarely overtly expressed, according to a paper by Feng Min, an anthropologist at Qinghai Normal University.
Since then, walking marriage has become less and less common. Feng’s 2004 survey of 232 households found that 49% of Zhaba households still practised the tradition.
Children in such families are raised by their mother and her siblings in large, six-storey communal houses of yellowed stone on the lush green hillsides, with cavernous rooms too large for much light to penetrate.
Raised by women
Fathers might provide some financial support.
Today, even those who wish to continue with walking marriage resort to paying unmarried acquaintances or strangers to apply for the certificate with them, said Tsultrim Paldzone. “The government won’t let you just do as you please.”
