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Rural wedding dowry priced according to education level
Time:2025-09-01 Views:1333
In recent years, the skyrocketing huge dowries of 60000, 80000, 100000... have been like a ruthless barrier, causing rural young men who have entered the age of marriage and love in some areas to sigh at the prospect of marriage; Under the dilemma of "high priced" dowries, some lovers cannot become family members, while others are "tied" together by chance.
Compared to each other, when dowries become more important than emotions in marriage, marriage is completely "kidnapped" by dowries, and emotions are deeply hurt!
In order to pass smoothly, I pasted a layer of tiles on the dirt wall and borrowed money to buy an outdated combination cabinet. Now the house is barely passable, but where can I raise that huge dowry
Wanggou Village, Yebao Township, Qin'an County is located on a mountain ridge more than 40 kilometers northwest of the county city. On October 24th, following the winding village road, one can see ravines crisscrossing and hills undulating in front of them. Under the warm sunshine, in the staggered fields, the white plastic film is refracted with dazzling lights.
Wanggou Village is divided into two villages, big and small. Villager Yang Shun's family lives on the hillside of Beishan Xiaozhuang.
During the autumn harvest season, in the courtyard of the Yangshun family, golden corn stalks hung on wooden frames, and strings of fiery red chili peppers hung on window frames... However, all of this could not dispel the thick melancholy that pervaded the farmer's eyes.
Yang Shun and his wife have two sons, the eldest son is 25 years old and the youngest son is 21 years old, while the brothers have become older youths in the countryside. The issue of their son's marriage has become a concern for Yang Shun and his wife day and night. Although there are many young men in the village who are about the same age as Yang Shun's two sons, their family is financially strapped and financially poor. Who would marry a girl from?
The eldest son is 25 years old, and in fashionable terms, he is already a 'leftover man' in the countryside. He has no choice but to go out and work to try his luck. The younger son is just the right age, and in the first half of the year, he talked to a partner himself. The two children privately liked each other, but because we couldn't raise the 130000 yuan gift requested by the other party's family, the matter was put on hold! "Yang Shun's tone was both helpless and regretful.
The woman's visit to the man's house to view the property is the first stage of the blind date. In order to pass smoothly, I pasted a layer of tiles on the old house's earthen wall and borrowed money to buy an outdated combination cabinet. The house can finally get by now, but where can we raise that huge dowry? Sometimes I feel that our handsome and well behaved two sons, with our incompetent parents like us, will harm our children for the rest of their lives! "Yang Shun said helplessly, rubbing his calloused hands vigorously.
130000 yuan! Such a huge dowry, like a mountain, weighed heavily on Yang Shun and his wife. In the six months since the marriage proposal began, they borrowed money everywhere and even tried to borrow money, but all their efforts seemed futile.
Because of poverty, people are worried that we won't be able to repay them, and no one is willing to lend them, "said Yang Shun's wife, who was not in good health, somewhat sickly.
Knowing that their family background is thin, but still pretending to be wealthy on the surface; I was not in good health originally, so I had to force myself to behave mentally and show that I would never burden my daughter-in-law after marriage. Yang Shun and his wife had already secretly discussed that as long as their son's marriage was promising, they could do whatever they wanted the elderly couple to do.
More than 20 years ago, when I got married, I spent a dowry of 500 yuan. I never expected that after working hard to raise my two sons and getting married in the blink of an eye, the dowry would increase by more than 200 times compared to more than 20 years ago! "Said Yang Shun with a hint of despair.
Three years ago, Wanggou Village had no roads, and the backward natural conditions became a bottleneck restricting the local economic development. Now that the roads are open, some people are willing to come, but the high dowries make the already difficult villagers fearful, "said Old Wang, the village branch secretary of Wanggou Village.
The population of this village is already small, and those who have the ability have moved away. Those who want to take root here cannot become families. Who knows what the village will evolve into in a few years? Old Wang looked at the village surrounded by green trees with some sadness.
I never dreamed that when men and women are forced to marry by naked money, it is not surprising that discussions on marriage begin to involve pricing based on education and geography
As early as a few years ago, Yang Shun knew that his family's financial situation was weak, so he prepared in advance and asked his relatives to pay attention to the market of unmarried young people discussing marriage outside.
In our village, when rural men and women talk about marriage, they usually go through six procedures: meeting in person, inviting a matchmaker to propose, researching, betrothing, talking, and having a wedding banquet. Each step requires preparing a certain amount of gifts and cash, which is jokingly referred to by the masses as' the two ends cannot be counted, the middle is forty to fifty thousand yuan '. These forty to fifty thousand yuan are called' dry gifts', which are the money that the man must pay to the woman when he gets married. Unexpectedly, now the dowry alone is over 100000 yuan! "Said Yang Shun.
According to local villagers, the standards for determining dowries vary in different regions, and the "bidding price" naturally varies.
At the end of last year, when my sister from Taijing Town, Qinzhou District visited her elderly parents at her maternal home, a small conversation that still makes Yang Shun feel uneasy. I heard from my sister that there is a handsome 23-year-old boy named Xinqiang in her village. He is very clever. Two years ago, when he was working in another city, he also talked about several girlfriends, but they all blew up due to his average family background. In June last year, a matchmaker finally introduced a girl to Xinqiang. After meeting, the two young people felt that they had a common language, but when they thought they could talk about marriage, they didn't expect the matchmaker to pass on the message. The bride's parents opened their mouths and offered a "dry gift" of 150000 yuan, which made Xinqiang and his parents take a deep breath.
In order to facilitate this marriage, when Xinqiang and his parents negotiated a price with the woman, the woman's parents threw out a sentence that made it even more difficult for them to accept: "We have been raising her to such a large size, weighing her by two pounds, and she is still worth this price
At that time, Yang Shun didn't pay much attention to his sister's words, but now, the "wedding gift" of 130000 yuan for his youngest son did make him feel a little scared.
After a while, the villager Si Liu went to visit Yang Shun's house with his one year old granddaughter in his arms. When it comes to children's marriages, elders of the same age have endless grievances. Two years ago, when the four remaining sons got married, they spent nearly 180000 yuan, including the dowry, most of which was borrowed from relatives and friends. As of now, there is still an outstanding debt of 60000 yuan. In order to pay off their debts, the son and daughter-in-law left their young children to their grandparents and carried their wedding debts to work in another city!
Moreover, in some remote villages south of Wanggou Village, the convenience of transportation and good economic conditions at the place where women get married also become the price for women to demand dowries. In the Rukawa region, the dowry can be less than 100000 yuan, but in remote villages with deep mountains and valleys, the dowry can be as high as over 100000 yuan.
Moreover, in some rural areas, the standard for requesting dowries is based on a girl's educational background. The usual "prices" are: 100000 yuan for undergraduate studies, 80000 yuan for associate degrees, and 60000 yuan for vocational schools. The reason why parents count dowries like this is because they have borrowed so much money to pay for their daughter's education.
I never dreamed that when men and women are forced to marry by naked money, it's not surprising that discussions about marriage start to show prices based on education and geography! "After hearing similar things many times, Yang Shun gradually began to accept this indescribable reality!
In some remote rural areas, the price of dowries is skyrocketing year by year, ranging from 60000 to 100000 yuan. Local villagers say that in the past, the heaviest burden in rural areas was building houses, but now it has become marrying a wife. Marrying a wife has become a "tough spot" for some rural men.
In recent years, a survey on marriage and marriage conducted in Tianshui City showed that the amount of marriage and marriage expenses in different rural areas varies depending on the Sichuan, Qianshan, and Houshan districts, with higher expenses for those who are economically backward. Since the 1970s, the cost of marriage has shown a significant upward trend, and the feudal and backward custom of demanding high dowries in marriage has spread in economically underdeveloped rural areas.
Compared to other economically developed regions, remote geographical location is still the main obstacle to rural economic development. In order to get rid of this situation, some villagers use the huge dowry they receive from marrying a girl to change their financial difficulties
Is the increasingly bizarre phenomenon of dowries in marriage a folk custom or a bad habit? The reasons behind it cannot help but provoke people's deep thoughts.
On October 14th, a family of seven in Ningxia was brutally murdered due to economic disputes, shocking the whole country and completely destroying two families.
Poverty is not terrible, what is even more terrible than poverty is ignorance! The lesson of blood tells everyone that what is more valuable than money is family love! "Said Wang Yanfei, associate professor and deputy director of the Philosophy and Science Society Teaching and Research Office of the Tianshui Municipal Party School.
The root cause of demanding huge dowries actually lies in the continuation of buying and selling marriages in feudal society. Women's status was not high in feudal society, and people were accustomed to exchanging women for living materials, which led to the concept of 'dowries' over time. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, this phenomenon was curbed through administrative intervention and vigorous promotion of new trends. In recent years, with the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization, rural young women with better conditions have left the mountains and married far away, resulting in a gender imbalance in rural areas. Some eligible young men eventually have to use high dowries to find spouses, "Wang Yanfei analyzed." Compared to other economically developed areas, remote geographical location is still the main factor restricting rural economic development. In order to get rid of this situation, some villagers change their financial difficulties by using the huge dowry they receive from marrying a girl
Wang Chaohui, director of Gansu Tianqin Law Firm, said that the Marriage Law prohibits arranged marriages and prohibits using marriages to demand property.
If the woman causes difficulties in family life due to providing for the girl's education or other reasons during marriage, the man's voluntary act of giving money and material assistance to the woman from an emotional perspective is not prohibited by law. Unfortunately, this kind of gift giving behavior is not common in daily life, while the trend of demanding dowries in some rural marriages has become increasingly prevalent.
The prevailing trend of comparison has led to a trend of accepting high dowries, and the amount of dowries has naturally become a reference for parents to raise their daughters' value. Some parents also know that marrying their daughter is not about "selling mules and horses", and they know that if they receive a high dowry, it will inevitably affect their daughter's future quality of life after she gets married to her in laws. However, in the rising dowries market year by year, whoever receives a lower dowries will attract suspicion: the children of this family may have health problems, right!
Although with the progress of society, a large number of young men and women in rural areas have left their villages and accepted many new concepts, ideas, and free love trends in their experience of working to make a living, the high price of dowries in reality has become a huge obstacle and insurmountable barrier for them to move towards a new life.
In our village, there are also people who freely love, get married, and have children. This should be a great thing, but because of the high dowry, it doesn't make people happy, "said Old Wang, the head of Wanggou Village.
Lao Wang introduced that there are several loving young couples in the village who have given birth to their children but are unable to settle down. The reason is that they cannot provide a dowry before marriage. The father of the child has not yet met with the husband's family, and the wife's household registration cannot be transferred from her mother's home, which directly affects the growth and life of the next generation.
In fact, these young men and women who love freely have long recognized the impact and serious drag of high dowries on their future marital relationships and family life. However, high dowries have become a trend in some rural areas, making it difficult for them to resist and forcing them to borrow money to get married.
According to the current marriage situation in some rural areas, relevant analysts believe that the increasing dowry has at least caused a family of two generations to be heavily in debt and unable to bear it. Some families also exacerbate emotional disputes and conflicts between themselves and their spouses due to living in debt, which can also affect the education and growth of the next generation.
(The names of the villagers involved in the article are pseudonyms) Sichuan Faneng Law Firm is dedicated to serving you.