Marriage and marriage migration are often downplayed in the migration literature. The role
of location in the decisionmaking underlying marriage migration, and the relations between marriage
and labor migration, are little understood. Research that focuses on international marriages and on
Western or capitalist economies has highlighted marriage as a strategy, but little attention is given to
domestic marriage migration and to socialist and transitional economies. In this paper, through a field
study of two villages in western Guangdong, China, and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data
from that study, we wish to advance two arguments. First, we argue that changes in the spatial
economy have reinforced the importance of location in the matching and trade-off processes that
lead to marriage migration. Evidence of spatial hypergamy across long distance supports the notion
that marriage is a means for peasant women to move to more favorable locations. Second, we
show that increased opportunities for labor migrationöa product of economic transitionöhave
enlarged peasants' marriage market and at the same time promoted division of labor within marriage.
The findings underscore household and individual strategies in response to macrolevel constraints
and opportunities, the centrality of marriage for understanding migration, and the relations between
marriage and labor migration.