What price true love? - groom in China pays bride’s parents millions for permission to marry
A bride in southeast China has become a sensation on the internet after it was revealed that her future husband gave her parents 6 million yuan (HK$7.2 million) to marry her.
Her parents then gave her 10 million yuan and a private jet to hand over to her husband’s family as a dowry, mainland media reported.
Photos of the newlyweds’ wedding in Putian in Fujian province went viral on social media with many internet users saying they were shocked by the amount of money involved. No details were given about the background of the couple.
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Another bride in Putian caused a stir online a few days before reports of the latest wedding with her bride price of 3.8 million yuan.
A map of the level of “bride prices” given in China, published three years ago by the Chongqing division of the real estate group Vanke and media company Sina’s real estate channel, suggested most husbands paid tens of thousands of yuan to their bride’s parents.
Shanghai topped the list with a bride price of 1 million yuan.
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Many young people have complained that the bride price tradition makes it almost impossible for them to start their own families.
Zhang Mingsuo, a sociology professor at Zhengzhou University, was quoted by the Dahe Daily as saying that in traditional rural areas bride prices were charged by parents to support themselves later in life after they had spent large sums raising their daughters.
But as materialism prevails, the amount of money paid in bride prices has soared and the tradition has strayed from its original purpose, Zhang said.
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It is a tradition in China for children to support their elderly parents.
The welfare system – including pensions and medical insurance – are often not enough to support the elderly, especially if they fall ill.
The decades-long one child policy, which was finally scrapped last year, has also increased the burden on children looking after their elderly parents.
