In China, Marriage Rates Are Down and ‘Bride Prices’ Are Up
China’s one-child policy has led to too few women. Grooms are now paying more money for wives, in a tradition that has faced growing resistance.
The 30 women sat in wooden chairs, facing each other in a rectangular formation. At the front of the room was the ruling Communist Party’s hammer and sickle logo, with a sign declaring the meeting’s purpose: “Symposium of unmarried young women of the right age.”
Officials in Daijiapu, a town in southeast China, had gathered the women to sign a public pledge to reject high “bride prices,” referring to a wedding custom in which the man gives money to his future wife’s family as a condition of engagement. The local government, describing the event earlier this year in a notice on its website, said it hoped people would abandon such backward customs and do their part to “start a new civilized trend.”
As China faces a shrinking population, officials are cracking down on an ancient tradition of betrothal gifts to try to promote marriages, which have been on the decline. Known in Mandarin as caili, the payments have skyrocketed across the country in recent years — averaging $20,000 in some provinces — making marriage increasingly unaffordable. The payments are typically paid by the groom’s parents.
