After years of being badgered by her parents to get married, 26-year-old Zhang Yu finally had enough.

在被父母逼婚了几年以后，26岁的张玉（音译）终于不想再忍受了。

"I have decided never to marry or have a child," said Zhang, a university graduate from Changsha, Hunan province, who moved to Shanghai earlier this year to escape her family and jumpstart her career.

“我决定一辈子不结婚，不要孩子，” 张玉说。她毕业于湖南长沙的一所大学，今年年初为了躲避父母的逼婚搬到了上海，专注自己的职业生涯。

Zhang's vow to never marry is rare in a country where educated women are constantly told by their families, friends and the state media that they will be lonely and miserable if they do not find a husband quickly.

在这个国家，受过教育的女性通常会从亲朋好友和社会舆论那里听到：如果她们不找一个丈夫，会很孤独，很悲惨，所以像张玉这样永不结婚的宣言并不常见。

Yet some women are fighting back by rejecting marriage altogether.

但是一些女性以集体拒绝婚姻来发起反抗。

Zhang had been living with her parents in Hunan to save money after obtaining her college degree, and for a time, fell sway to her parents' worries that she would become a "leftover woman" (or "shengnv" in Chinese,) officially defined as an urban, educated woman over age 27 who is single. But upon reading feminist websites, she came to believe the term existed to make women return to the home.

为了供张玉上大学，父母和她在湖南省吃俭用。现在父母一度担心她会成为“剩女”，即过了27岁还未结婚的受教育程度较高的都市女性。但是当她浏览了很多女权主张的网站后，她开始相信“剩女” 这个词是为了使女性回归家庭。

She then took a risk by moving to Shanghai without a job and leaving the comforts of home for a dorm room shared with nine other roommates. But she loves her new friends and sense of freedom.

她决定冒次险：还没找到工作她就搬去了上海，离开了舒适温暖的家，却住在了一个十人的宿舍里。但她十分喜欢这些新朋友和自由的感觉。

"Men are still thinking in the old ways, but women's values have evolved. I feel very relaxed now," said Zhang, who just received a sales job offer.

“男人们还在用旧的方式思考，但是女人的价值观已经改变了。我觉得现在很轻松，” 张玉说，她刚刚得到了一份销售工作。

Lan Fang, a 32-year-old client relations manager for a financial company in Shanghai, similarly embraces her single lifestyle. She enjoys a relatively high income of 20,000 RMB a month (around US$3,200) and often goes out with friends to dinners, movies and concerts.

32岁的兰芳（音译）是上海某金融公司的一名客户关系经理，也享受着她的单身生活。她收入相对较高，每月月薪两万人民币，经常和朋友出去聚餐、看电影、听音乐会。

"Where I grew up in Nanjing, I saw so many couples getting into big fights, and most of them seemed unhappy. Plus, so many men have affairs," Lan said. "My life in Shanghai now is very rich, why would I want to change it?"

“我在南京长大，看过太多夫妻吵吵闹闹，大多数看起来并不幸福。还有，很多男人都有外遇，”兰芳说，“我现在在上海的生活很富裕，为什么要改变呢？”

Zhang and Lan are in the minority, but their attitudes reflect the reality that marriage in today's China does little to protect women's rights. Official statistics show that a quarter of women have experienced intimate partner violence, but feminist activists say that number is an underestimate.

张玉和兰芳只是少数，但她们的态度反映出现在的中国，女性的权利在婚姻中无法得到保障。官方数据表明四分之一的女性遭受过家庭暴力，但是女权活动家说这个数据其实还低于实际。

Li Ying, an attorney and director of the Yuanzhong Gender Development Center in Beijing, said many women do not recognize they are victims of domestic violence.

北京张远忠性别发展中心的律师兼主任李颖（音译）说，许多女性并没意识到自己是家暴的受害者。

"Ask a woman if she has experienced domestic violence and she will say, 'Oh no, of course not!'" Li said. "Ask her if her husband has hit her and she will say yes."

“如果问一个女性她是否遭受过家暴，她会说，‘没有，当然没有！’” 李颖说，“但你问她丈夫有没有打过她，她会说打过。”

Despite years of intense lobbying by women's rights groups, the Chinese government has failed to enact targeted legislation to curb domestic violence. "Judges almost never define a case as 'domestic violence' because the current law in China is not specific or clear enough," said Feng Yuan, a leading activist with the Anti-Domestic Violence Network in Beijing. As a result, it is extremely difficult for women to secure protection from a violent partner.

尽管女权运动组织已经进行了几年的游说，但中国政府并未立法遏制家暴。“法官几乎不会判定为家暴，因为中国现行法律并未作出明确清晰的界定，” 北京“反家暴网络”的活动家冯远说。因此，女性想要得到法律保护是极其困难的。

According to a 2012 survey by Horizon China of home buying in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, only 30% of marital home deeds include the woman's name, even though over 70% of women contribute to the marital home purchase.

根据“中国地平线”2012年的调查，在北京、上海、广州、深圳等城市，在家庭购物上女性做出的贡献超过70%，但只有30%的房产契约上登记有女性的名字。

"The institution of marriage basically benefits men, and when women are hurt, this institution doesn't protect our rights," a young woman in Beijing recently told me. "The most rational choice is to stay single."

“婚姻制度基本上是有利于男性，如果女性受到伤害，法律不会保护我们，”一名北京的年轻女性告诉我。“最理性的选择就是保持单身。”