I would like to see an equivalent study on Indian weddings. All the people I know who got married recently spent between $50-$100k on their wedding. My own wedding was about $50k. Food alone was nearly $20k (over 1200 guests were invited - which was on the low end)
Things have already changed. It's becoming more and more common in rural China to marry South East Asian women from places like Vietnam and Cambodia... which of course potentially spreads the problem<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/too-many-men/?utm_term=.855ea8d420a4" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/too-many-...</a>
These are house down payment prices.<p>My wife and I eloped and were married for a total of $270 in Las Vegas (25 years ago). It is easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.<p>I have heard lots of people complain that they spent too much time, money and psychological goodwill on their elaborate marriage events, but I have never heard someone say they regretted a simple inexpensive wedding.
Markets always appear next to scarcity, and laws against market operations always drive transactions underground, because supply and demand must be made to meet somehow. Without expressing approval per se of what's happening in China, I do have to express a total lack of surprise that people react to scarcity in one area in the same way they react to scarcity in every other.<p>Extreme gender imbalances are societally destabilizing, and the Chinese government, which is <i>obsessed</i> with social stability, should have reacted much faster once it noticed the gender gap in newborns. Now, it's too late, and a generation will be unhappy.
Same in india its called the dowry system. But now women are employed more and guess what its not changing as much it should be. Its strange that the educated employed women is expecting dowry from her parents to give it to her husbands(in most cases). The core problem is its considered a status issue. If the grand marriages are not celebrated and looked down then this might change.
I think the title is misleading: its not really marriage costs, its a payment to the bride/parents to account for the gender disparity in China caused by sex-selective abortions.<p>These bride costs should be allowed to climb infinitely, because it will serve as an incentive for families to have girls - and actually sex-selectively abort boys.<p>Unfortunately we are seeing all this in the West, where Asian migrants to countries like Australia are still selectively aborting girls. The difference is that other ethnicities are not, so those Asian boys can then grow up to marry girls from other communities, and a female shortage is pushed onto the whole of society. Its basically a tragedy of the commons.
"they’ll likely drive bride-price transactions underground — and possibly to new heights as parents demand a risk premium for paying up."<p>Eh? Wouldn't parents demand a risk <i>discount</i> for paying up?
Interesting article. I'm a little surprised on how abruptly the article just seems to end, the author suggests possible solutions to the problem, but doesn't argue them just presents them.
I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich.<p>Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me.<p>Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financially by paying it.
<i>A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices.</i><p>We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China.<p>Journalists always push their prefferred policies even when there's no proof they solve the very clearly stated problem. Subsidize kindergartens! Mandatory, paid maternal leaves! All while populations that implemented them keep collapsing.