China has a traditional culture of advocating social mobility. In the context of social mobility, the two dimensions of individuals social status (ascribed status, and achieved status) tend to be inconsistent. Thus, based on complementary resources, men and women may exchange the two dimensions of social status in mate selection. The empirical results based on CFPS data also show that both men and women exchange high family background for the spouse’s high achieved socioeconomic status. In addition, cohort comparisons show that the origin-status exchange pattern has been substantially weakened over time, and disappeared for those born after 1970. The results suggest that attention should be paid to guiding young people to choose their spouses with weaker utilitarian purposes, and social mobility should be further promoted.