In China, the marriage rate falls and the ‘bride price’ rises

30 women sit on wooden chairs, facing each other in a rectangular formation. At the front of the room is the hammer and sickle symbol of the ruling Communist Party, with a sign declaring the purpose of the meeting: “Symposium of young unmarried women of the right age. “

Officials in Daijiapu, a town in southeastern China, gathered the women to sign a public pledge to reject the high “bride price”, referring to the wedding custom in which the man gives money to the future wife’s family as a condition of engagement. The local government, which described the event earlier this year in a statement on its website, said it hoped people would give up such outdated customs and contribute to “starting a trend”. new civilization”.

As China faces a shrinking population, officials are cracking down on a longstanding tradition of wedding gifts in an attempt to boost marriage, which is already in decline. Known in Mandarin as caili, payments have skyrocketed across the country in recent years — $20,000 on average in some provinces — making marriage increasingly difficult to afford. The payments are usually paid by the groom’s parents.

To curb this practice, the local government has launched propaganda campaigns such as the Daijiapu event, instructing unmarried women not to compete with each other for the highest price. Some town officials have imposed limits on caili or even directly interfered in private negotiations between families.

The tradition has been met with growing public opposition as attitudes have changed. Among the more educated Chinese, especially in the cities, many can see it as a relic of the patriarchy that views women as property to be sold to other households. In rural areas, where the custom tends to be more common, it also falls out of favor among poor farmers, who must save their income for several years or go into debt to get married.

Even so, the government’s campaign has been criticized for reinforcing sexist stereotypes against women. The Chinese media, when describing the issue of rising marital payments, often portray women seeking large amounts of money as greedy.

After the Daijiapu incident went viral on social media, a flurry of commenters questioned why the burden of problem-solving fell on women. Some commenters called on officials to convene similar meetings for men to teach them how to be more equal partners in marriage.

In China, “like most state policies on marriage, women are the central target,” says Gonçalo Santos, professor of anthropology studying rural China at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Nha, said. “It is a patriarchal call for women to maintain social order and harmony, to fulfill their roles of wife and mother.”

By targeting women, official campaigns like the Daijiapu event ignore the fact that the problem is partly government-generated. During the four decades of the one-child policy, parents generally preferred sons, leading to a gender disparity and increasing competition for wives.

The imbalance is most pronounced in rural areas, where there are now 19 million more men than women. Many rural women prefer to marry urban men in order to obtain an urban hukou, or hukou, permit, which allows for better access to schools, housing and health care.

Poorer men in rural areas have to pay more to get married because the women’s families want greater assurance that they can provide for their daughters, a move. may instead plunge them deeper into poverty.

Yuying Tong, a professor of sociology at the University of Hong Kong, said: “This has broken many families. “Parents spend all their money and go bankrupt just to find a wife for their son.”

Officials have acknowledged their limited ability to eliminate a custom many families see as a sign of social status. According to researchers on this custom, in rural areas, neighbors may gossip about cheap women, questioning whether something is wrong with them.

This tradition is also related to inherent attitudes about the role of women as caregivers of the family. In rural China, the money is still seen as a bribe of the bride’s labor and fertility from her parents, the researchers say. After marriage, a woman is usually expected to stay with her husband’s family, become pregnant, and be responsible for housework, child rearing, and taking care of the husband’s household.

But as soaring costs of living have exposed holes in China’s social safety net, securing a high marital payout could be a way for low-income families to have children. Girls save for unexpected medical bills or other emergencies. And with parents living longer, some women are demanding higher prices to be reimbursed for being the primary caregiver of older generations, the researchers said.

Sociologists say a more effective way for the government to curb this tradition is to increase funding for childcare and healthcare for the elderly.

Liu Guoying, 58, a matchmaker in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province, said as more and more young Chinese people delay or stay away from marriage, their parents’ expectations of marriage pay rise. is changing. can exceed 50,000 USD.

Parents eager to facilitate a smooth start to their marriage, she said, are increasingly passing payments to newlyweds as a gift. Some parents, she said, are so desperate for their daughters to get married that they are willing to pay less cash as long as the prospective groom-to-be treats their children well.

Ms. Liu said: “It’s a pity for the hearts of parents around the world.

A new generation of women, more educated than their parents, could also play a role in changing attitudes around the issue. A 2020 survey of about 2,000 people in China see that well-educated couples pay less bridesmaids, they believe that it is enough to love each other.

But even for women like Luki Chan, 27, who went to college, an opportunity her mother never had, escaping the pressures of hometown traditions can be difficult.

Ms. Chan grew up in the mountains of Fujian, a province in southeastern China, where pre-marriage is often high. Her mother hopes to receive at least $14,000 from the groom when she gets married, she said, to pay back the money she spent on her education.

Now, Ms. Chan is building her own career in Shanghai as a theater producer and is applying for marriage registration with her Taiwanese boyfriend. Ms. Chan fears that when her parents find out, their betrothal request will eventually prevail. Miss Chan rejected tradition, seeing it as the equivalent of being sold.

“When I see the patriarchal system that exploits women and the marriage customs that are not suitable for women, I am afraid to discuss marriage with my family,” she said.

Officials see lavish payments as a pressing issue that can hinder economic development and cause social unrest.

Across the country, cities are trying to popularize the idea of ​​getting engaged without exchanging money. This month, local officials in Nanchang held a free mass wedding for 100 concurrently married couples inside a large sports stadium, chanting the slogan “We want happiness, not the bride price.”

Couples dressed in red and yellow traditional Chinese wedding dresses perform the ceremony in a synchronized choreography. Their loved ones watched from the stands, with local government officials taking the main seats.

But in a sign that the custom still exists, dozens of residents across China over the past year have complained to local officials on online message boards about exorbitant marriage payments.

IN a unit Last summer, a resident said he was “begging” the local government to regulate marital payments in the rural village of Baixiang in southwestern China, where many farmers live in poverty. hungry.

Three weeks later, county officials responded that they had sent a team of investigators to question the resident’s girlfriend at her home. She told investigators that her parents agreed to marry her for about $40,000 and refused her request for a discount. The boyfriend’s family has only paid half the amount so far.

After “excellent efforts by all parties,” officials said, the girlfriend’s father agreed to pay about $9,000 and return the rest to the boyfriend’s family. The return took place at the local Communist Party office, in the presence of party officials.

Officials ended their report with a message to the couple: “Wish you a happy life!”