Bridewealth in China

Bridewealth in China

China has centuries of evolving marriage practices that range from fully arranged marriages, matchmakers, to a modern-day form of falling in love. One practice that is still in place today is the presentation of a bridewealth. A bride wealth is considered “money, property, or wealth "paid" to the parents of a woman for the right to marry their daughter” from the husbands family (https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bride_price). The thought process behind a bride wealth is to pay the bride’s family for the loss of their daughter for labor. For purposes of this article, bridewealth and bride price will take on the same definition. Some anthropologists argue that one term is more appropriate than the other, but scholarly articles cited use the terms interchangeably.

Evolution of Bridewealth

China’s marriage traditions have started to evolve as western society influence spreads east, but the one tradition that has stayed fully in tact is bridewealth. In fact, the capacity of the bridewealth has only increased in the past decades. The figure below shows the value of the bride price over time, adjusted for inflation. You can see how the price has skyrocketed over the past 5 decades. The form of bridewealth has also adjusted over time. In the past, the bridewealth would go to the bride’s family to cover the loss of losing their daughter to her new husband, but more recently, the bridewealth has started going directly to the bride for her ability to have her own property and create a stronger sense of individualism (Zhang 2000: 62-65).

Originally, prior to 1950, the bridewealth was paid with cash, called Liqian. This transaction now is looked at as simpler times. Evolving into the 1960’s and 1970’s, the monetary sum started to have a stronger purpose. It was meant to be enough money to allow the bride to buy new things such as clothes and shoes. At this point, the bride did not see the money directly, but instead just received the items. With time though, the bride did fully own the property of her new items as the groom’s family would give her the rights. This reflects the rising individualism of the bride. Moving on to the 1980’s the type of items included in the bride wealth increased to include things like bedding, sewing machines, and radios that could be used for the new married couple. For a short time during the late 80s into the 90s, there was a revert back to cash, but it again went back to gifts where the continued to grow. By the end of the 1990s the price typically included a new house and some type of agricultural item (Yan 2005: 638-642). The figures below also shows the various presentations of gifts throughout the marriage process and the different gifts over the recent years.

(Jiang 2015: Figure 1). (Jiang 2015: Table 1).

Government and Bridewealth

Since China is a socialist state, the government regulates many aspects of marriage. In 1950, the government tried to outlaw bridewealth as a way to reform marriage customs, but ultimately they failed when many parts of rural China continued to practice marriage transactions because of the individual interest. The bridewealth is most prominently present in rural China.