
“Are you selling your daughter?” A woman who wants to get married says to her parents angrily. Her parents oppose her to marry the guy she loves as the guy is too poor to afford the bride-price and she is not the only one suffers from this. There is a tradition about marriage in Chinese, especially in rural areas, that the bridegroom’s side has to pay the bride-price to the bride’s side, who will ask the price as high as possible. The elders of the bride judge the man quite partly depending on the bride-price he pays. This tradition is difficult for some men. Some lovers loss the chances to get married finally just because the price is not enough while some men borrow money to pay for that so he has a debt on his shoulder in the coming years. In order to help the lovers have their marriage successfully, the bride-price pattern should be replaced by other methods, such as “family fund”.
“Honey moon”, which is from western countries, leads a new way, so called“marriage trip”, for some lovers in China to get away from all the wedding things, which also helps them avoid the big expenses on the wedding especially the bride-price. However, it usually has some bad effects. For example, their marriage won’t be blessed by the elders because what they do is regarded disrespect and causes disharmony.
“Family fund”, a new modern pattern to replace the bride-price, can help to solve the problems annoying the bridegrooms. If the lovers plan to get married, they can start a small fund, which is only for their own future family. The man should put money as much as possible into it before he gets married. After they build a family, the couple should try their best to make the fund stronger and the husband is most importantly responsible for the fund, which helps him remember his promise for the marriage and the family. In addition, this fund eases the man’s burden as he doesn’t need to spend years to repay a debt and he can use the money to their wedding,.
People may doubt that it cannot work because some parents of the brides do not trust that the men will devote themselves on this fund. There is no need to worry about this because the fund is transparent for both sides. In the family gathering of every Spring Festival, the husband should let the elders of the wife’s side know that if the fund is going well until they think this man is a good guy for their daughter.
If the tradition of bride-price can become a choice but not mandatory, if the “family fund” can be adopted by many families, more lovers can successfully access their happy marriages. Before this become realization, the men should spare no effort to do well on his career and gain the trust from the woman’s side as in China, parents still play an important role on their children’s marriages. By that moment, marriage will not be regarded as a transaction by some lovers any more. Jack shall have Jill, all shall be well.
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