STATE AGENDAS, LOCAL SENTIMENTS - VIETNAMESE WEDDING PRACTICES AMIDSTSOCIALIST TRANSFORMATIONS

This article examines how Vietnamese citizens responded to state exhor tations to devalue and simplify maritial exchanges. Such exhortations reflected Engels' belief ([1884] 1972) that the success of revolutiona ry socialism was contingent upon a transformation of marital instituti ons. Vietnam, a ''weak'' state with an otherwise home-grown socialist revolution, announced decrees to this end in the North after national partition in 1954 and in the South following political reunification i n 1975. This article employs data from the author's 1993 field survey in a Northern and Southern province to track temporal changes in a var iety of Vietnamese wedding practices. The results suggest that the soc ialist marriage pattern took hold in the Northern province only. Findi ngs are linked to historical events, modernization, state-society barg aining processes, as well as the more general successes and failures o f revolutionary socialism in Vietnam.