Chinanews, Hong Kong, Nov. 15 – Shanghai women are criticized by some people as being too snobbish – they just want to marry the rich. However, according to Hu Shensheng, there is nothing wrong with this. As everybody lives in an economically prosperous society, money has played an increasingly important part in everybody's life. In some way, how much money one can earn can well reflect one's social status, the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po reported.For decades, Shanghai women have always been well ahead of women in other cities with regard to the marriage issue.In the1950s when New China was just founded, many Shanghai women liked to marry Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) cadres who had fought in the civil wars and later stayed in Shanghai to construct and manage the city.In the 1960s, it seemed that all women in China wanted to marry a PLA soldier. Once a woman married a soldier, the family would then become a "Jun Shu" (armymen's family) and as such would enjoy a lot of preferential policies issued by the state then.In the 1970s, when China experienced social chaos in the "cultural revolution", one's fate in society depended on one's family background. Therefore many Shanghai women wanted to marry someone who had a "clean" family background.In the 1980s, the marriage values changed again. At that time, as China began to carry out the opening-up policy, many Shanghai women then wanted to tie the knot with a man who had some overseas relatives. If the husband had some relatives who stayed in a rich country, then he could receive a lot of money or gifts sent by them from abroad, these women thought. Some women wanted to find a boyfriend with a father or mother who, after suffering from a lot of mistreatment in the "cultural revolution", had been compensated under the state's new policy. For these families that once underwent sufferings in the political upheaval, the state would give them a lot of compensation – it would return their houses and all the belongings that were once confiscated. Some people would regain their senior official titles they had before. So marrying such family would surely get a lot of benefits. Still, there were some other Shanghai women who were practical and thought that they would just marry someone who had his own house.Today, times have changed, so have people's ideas. Nowadays, rich people enjoy more respect in society. As China futher develops its economy, money, power and career will play an increasingly important part in one's life, Professor Hu said. So it is quite natural for people to think this way and the public should not blame them for such thinking. Now, people lay more stress on money issues. However, as society develops, some day the old values will return when people will once again care more about the affectionate feelings of their partners, Hu said.