The "Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases Involving Disputes over Bride Price" came into force on February 1 this year. After the promulgation of the new regulations, there is a basis for "whether the bride price will be refunded or not" after divorce and breakup, and several related cases have been handled intensively in various places recently, clarifying the adjudication rules and giving guidance to the parties. The new regulations make it clear that if the parties have registered their marriage and live together, and one party requests the return of the bride price paid in accordance with custom at the time of divorce, the people's court will generally not support it. However, if the period of living together is relatively short and the amount of the bride price is too high, the people's court may determine whether to return the bride price and the specific proportion of the bride price based on the actual use of the bride price and the dowry, comprehensively considering facts such as the amount of the bride price, the circumstances of living together and the circumstances of pregnancy, and the fault of both parties, as well as local customs. At the same time, the new regulations clarify several types of property that are not considered bride price by way of reverse exclusion, including gifts and cash gifts of little value paid by one party at special commemorative times such as festivals or birthdays, and daily consumption expenses of one party to express or enhance feelings. This new regulation is mainly aimed at key and difficult issues in judicial practice, such as the scope of the determination of the bride price, the principle of the return of the bride price, and the qualification of the subject of the lawsuit, so that the bride price can return to the essence of "gift", but there is no and cannot make any specific regulation for the amount of the bride price. As for the level of the bride price, it should have been decided through consultation between the two parties based on local customs and their respective wishes. In fact, in recent years, various localities have been trying to change customs on the issue of bride price, but it is obvious that they have had little effect, why is this? 
Stills from "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes".
Before we get into that, we first need to be clear about this:At first glance, the "bride price" seems to be a long-standing "tradition", but the amount, the inner meaning and the meaning to the parties to the marriage contract have changed dramatically. Behind this change, the rights and interests of men and women and the concept of marriage and love in the whole society are no longer the same. Fundamentally speaking, the bride price was originally the product of buying and selling marriages, and it was the man's financial compensation for the loss of a member of the woman's family, but it was never just a "transaction", but was carried out under the strong cultural symbolism of "rite". In this day and age, the reason why the bride price has caused controversy often revolves around these points: many people cannot accept the original meaning of buying and selling marriage, some people complain that the bride price is no longer a "gift" and has become an unbearable financial competition, and others are already discussing the legitimacy of the bride price as compensation for women's marriage and childbirth. Of course, no matter what form of discussion, one of the basic perceptions of everyone is that the amount of the bride price has been rising over the years. In this regard, one of the common views is to blame the greed of young women and their parents, as if they are all moral corruption brought about by money worship, however, this does not explain why the business culture is more developed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, the Pearl River Delta This kind of phenomenon is not serious, and now the bride price is famous in Jiangxi, and the problem of bride price in the countryside is more serious than in the city. The fact is that the cases of disputes over the return of marital property also show obvious regional characteristics of "more in the west and less in the east, and more in the north and less in the south", and the value of the bride price is usually more than 3-10 times the per capita disposable annual income, and the poorer the place, the more exaggerated this ratio is. In other words, the bride price has become a serious "problem" precisely in underdeveloped areas. 
Dear Children" stills.
The lower the income, the higher the value of the bride price, which seems strange at first glance, but in fact it is logical: economically backward areas often have backward concepts, retaining a stronger concept of preference for sons, and the sex ratio may have been unbalanced since birth, coupled with the expansion of university enrollment and the rise of the part-time economy in the past two or three decades, local women have seized every opportunity to leave as much as possible, and eventually accumulated, which is bound to eventually cause a serious imbalance between supply and demand in the local marriage market. Quite ironically:Under the impact of modernization, the traditional concept of patriarchy was ultimately borne by the men at the bottom. The marriage model of "strong men and weak women" is still stubborn, so that women are still regarded as "unattainable" in the county system, but on the other hand, many men who are eager to get married have repeatedly compromised - family background and appearance can not be particular, and women in second marriage do not care, almost "as long as it is a woman". When the low-level men become weak in the game of marriage and love, the courtship competition of the males will definitely be more intense. In big cities, men and women may also consider multiple dimensions when considering marriage, especially the emotional value of romantic love, but the smaller the place, the more simply and rudely the price of the marriage market. In this case, whoever can give a higher bride price will certainly get the preference of scarce women in this courtship game. 
It is difficult to find a partner for rural singles in the stills of "Scenery Wedding", and the fundamental crux is here: in the face of the objective fact that there are more women and men, the initiative to choose is in the hands of the woman. As long as a rural family has money, it is not difficult to marry a daughter-in-law, but in many places, there is no 100-square-meter apartment in the county seat and a bride price of varying amountsThere are 40 million singles in the country, and the intuitive reason seems to be a lack of money in hand, but in fact, of course, it is because 30 million fewer girls were born. The high value of the bride price is only a consequence of this imbalance between supply and demand. Sociologist Li Yongping pointed out in his book "The Changing Family: The Multiple Faces of the Chinese Peasant Family Order in the Transition Period" that "the traditional marriage custom has only retained its shell at present, and its inner meaning has been completely stripped away", and that the complicated marriage procedure is no longer to strengthen the mutual understanding of the families of men and women, although the name is still there, "but its purpose is no longer to enhance the mutual understanding of the families of men and women, but to become an excuse for the woman's family to ask for a price". She found that the high bride price in rural areas in North China has intensified the pressure of class competition, "when local marriage has become a preferential choice, women have become a scarce commodity in the local marriage market, so they have absolute dominance in the marriage market, and have the ability and motivation to be the best." But it's not necessarily all bad:The strict family planning policy of the past failed to fundamentally change the peasants' concept of childbearing, and now the high bride price has been achieved"With the bride price and the rising cost of male marriage, farmers really feel the pressure of having sons, especially sons. As a result, the local farmers' conception of fertility began to change, and 'one son and one daughter' became the most ideal fertility outcome. Of course, there is still an implicit patriarchal mentality, but objectively it can indeed weaken the traditional concept of patriarchy. However, this is still not enough to fundamentally solve the problem of bride price, because in addition to the gender imbalance, there are more complex causes of this problem. In many places (especially in rural areas like North China), "can't let the son beat the single" is the persistent belief of the parents, after all, this means the end, so the whole family will smash the pot and sell iron to let the son get a daughter-in-law; In rural China, this intergenerational support is limited, and the parent generation only has to do their best. In other words, in big cities with more open-minded ideas, even whether their children get married or not, many parents can accept it now. If you think about it, you know that if you "can tie the knot, it doesn't matter if you can't", then you naturally lack the willingness to pay for the bride price. 
Stills from "South to North".
Nowadays, many men blame the bride price on the woman, but one key change that many people don't notice is:In the early days, the bride price of buying and selling marriages was not accepted by the woman herself, but by her parents, which did have the color of "selling daughters", but now, the bride price is also left to the bride. This is difficult to explain in terms of "selling", so there is now a popular explanation that the bride price is compensation for a woman's childbirth. Whether this view is correct or not, at least it shows that the general view of society is no longer that it is to be compensated to the woman's family, but to her herself. In China, the more values and social forms are more traditional in places, the higher the value of the bride price. In addition to the gender imbalance caused by the preference for sons over daughters, and the strong willingness of parents to invest in the concept of inheritance, another reason is the lack of independent personal property awareness. In other words, the consciousness of "I want to make my own money if I want to get married, and my parents' money is their own" is difficult to see in the offspring, on the contrary, as the sociologist Yan Yunxiang once pointed outSome young couples actually regard the cost of marriage, including the bride price and the marriage room, as a means of inheriting their parents' property in advance. This is not just a scheming of young people, but also has a more far-reaching social background. Historian Mio Kishimoto, after studying Chinese society, argues that in traditional Chinese families, the family property is determined by the parents, but fundamentally, this family property is considered to be shared by the flow of life from ancestors to descendants, and the parents are only "temporarily held". Following this logic, when the children start a family, the family property is gradually transferred to them. This is why in some places, fathers are willing to give everything in their power to pay a high bride price for their sons to be able to get a daughter-in-law, and their children rightfully laugh at it. 
Stills from "Opponent".
Historically, nearly one-fifth of men and women in modern Western European societies have not entered into marriage, and generally marry later (especially men), because in these individualistic developed societies, everyone has to learn to take responsibility for their own lives, especially sons who cannot inherit the family property other than the eldest son, and have to go out and take risks to earn capital that can start a family. This is why it is common in modern Western European families that the father is more than ten years older than the mother. It is precisely because of the unclear sense of personal property that the crux of the current bride price dispute has been createdThe bride price is often mistaken for a gift to a small family, but according to the current legal definition, it is actually a gift to the bride personally, and the right to control it belongs to the bride herself. It is precisely because some men are beginning to realize this that they are more and more reluctant to pay a high bride price - in other words, the man originally thought that "the money seems to be given to her, but in the end the person is mine and the money is still mine", but in fact, in the end, if you break up, the person is not yours and the money is no longer yours. For women, the issue is quite different: except in areas where there are many remnants of traditional beliefs, more and more women and their parents are acquiescing that the bride price is for the bride herself, and that the reason why they want the bride price is not to "sell their daughters for a good price", but to believe that it reflects respect for women. Especially in big cities, I have heard of a lot of bride price disputes in marriage and love, the woman is not short of money at all, and even richer than the man, and her parents are just a pearl in the palm of their hands, and the property will be hers in the future, and they want the bride price not to leave it for their own retirement, but think that this is the sincerity of the man: at this time, it is all sloppy, so can you still believe that you will treat your wife well after marriage? 
Stills from "Ode to Joy".
Here, a key point is: the protection of women's rights and interests in China is not perfect, whether it is childbirth, education, medical care, no money, social security is almost equal to nothing, if you want to have material security after marriage, the most ready-made way is to ask for a bride price. Many people can't understand why new women still want a bride price, and to put it bluntly, the internal logic is here:The less women's rights are protected, the more important the bride price is, because getting money is the most tangible protection. After awakening to the consciousness of rights, many women are more deeply aware that they cannot be ashamed to talk about money like the previous generation of women, and they must easily back down on this issue, and they must strive for their own interests as much as possible, but in this way, the bride price actually transfers the rights and interests responsibilities that should be borne by the whole society into family conflicts. Knowing this, we will realize that the bride price is a distorted presentation caused by a series of intertwined social values, but in any case, wishful thinking only wants to return to "pure customs" There is no way to solve new problems, society has changed, and we can only move forward. **The bride price cannot disappear by administrative directive, but when gender discrimination in the whole society is gradually eliminated, young people can be independent, and more and more people can accept that marriage is just an option in life, this problem will naturally no longer be a problem.