The world has been bitter for a long time! But have you ever thought about a question, why can such a thing that has been criticized by the whole network survive tenaciously for thousands of years? What are the forces behind them? Today, let's talk about this issue.
First of all, as is customary, let's talk about the origin of the bride price.
Everyone knows why the bride price was born? Because in ancient China, marrying a daughter is equivalent to losing a labor force in the family, and after the daughter gets married, there is no major event, and she can almost not return to her parents' home, so to a certain extent, the bride price is actually the labor compensation given by the man to the woman, which is equivalent to buying out the ownership of the woman at one time.
At this point, you can go back and ask the old people in the family, in the past, the older generation of people looking for a daughter-in-law, a core criterion is that they must be big, because they can do farm work and bring greater benefits to the man.
Understanding this, we know that the bride price survived for thousands of years in ancient times is actually very reasonable, after all, someone else gave you a labor force, you have to show some sincerity.
It is precisely because I understand this truth that I never criticize the ancient bride price system, because the level of productive forces determines the relations of production, and in that backward agricultural civilization era, in order to maintain the marriage system, it was necessary to play like this.
But the times are always progressive, and with the development of productive forces, people slowly find that the ancient marriage system is obviously a little unbearable.
The first key turning point was the ** period.
What happened at that time? It is our party that established the first Soviet area in Jiangxi, we want to realize communism, in the face of this advanced thought, the marriage system of the feudal era of the bride price is naturally a little too outdated, so in 1931, the first Soviet area publicly stated that it would abolish the bride price, dowry and dowry, and prohibit the sale of marriage.
In other words, in fact, in 1931, there was already an official document abolishing the bride price in China.
But this new idea did not have time to be promoted nationwide at that time, and the reason is clear to everyone.
Until 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded, China immediately promulgated the first law after the founding of the People's Republic of China - the "Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China", which clearly stated: it is forbidden to buy and sell marriages!
Since this time, in fact, the official attitude towards the bride price has been very clear, that is, it will not be supported.
Moreover, the basic national conditions at that time did not have the soil for the survival of the bride price, because of two reasons:
First, from the perspective of the basic system, collective ownership, the income from labor belongs to the collective, and the distribution of fruits is also a big pot of rice, so the argument that marrying a daughter means losing labor force is untenable, after all, the collective raises you.
Second, at that time, all kinds of bills were popular, such as food stamps, meat stamps, etc., and you had to exchange them for the bills, and you couldn't ask for a bride price.
So the marriage at that time was very simple.
When you get married in the 50s, you can start a new married life with a bed, two quilts, a washbasin, a spittoon, and a hot water bottle.
When I got married in the 60s, it was enough to set a table for a banquet, sing a revolutionary song, make a cupboard, a table, four chairs, and a bed.
In the '70s, a radio, a sewing machine, a watch, a bicycle and a whole new family was formed.
And unlike all kinds of younger brothers and demons now, and giving the bride price to parents for the elderly, the wedding objects at that time were really all given to the new family.
This rustic environment lasted for almost 30 years, untilIn the 80s, there was a second key turning point.
As the spring breeze of reform swept across the land of China, there was a once-in-a-millennium population movement in Chinese society, and a large number of people left the land where they had lived for generations to work in cities thousands of miles away.
It stands to reason that in the era of industrial civilization, the bride price should have disappeared, after all, the two cornerstones of the existence of the bride price have been destroyed
First, women can now go home at any time.
Second, the wealth created by a woman belongs to herself, and she can still give back to her mother's family.
In such a situation, if you say that the bride price is labor compensation for the woman, it is obviously a bit too much, so from this period on, the society has obviously questioned the bride price.
However, it can still be explained, because in the past, everyone got married in the same village or married to the next village, and the woman basically knew the man's conditions, and there would be no encounter, but with the progress of urbanization, many women are looking for outsiders, thousands of miles away, and they don't know what the other party's conditions are.
From a woman's point of view, she is unwilling to take such a marital risk, so she proposes a bride price, and here the bride price plays a key role, that is, to test the man's financial resources. For example, your girlfriend asks for a bride price of 200,000 yuan, in fact, her subtext is that this 200,000 yuan is her bottom line, if you can't even take out 200,000 yuan, then why should she suffer with you?
In addition to this reason, there is another important reason why many women insist on bride price, that is, they often call maternity compensation, because as long as a woman has a child, it basically means that her career development has come to a standstill, so she has to calculate this loss for you.
I'll tell you the truth, if most women want a bride price, it's really just because of these two reasons, it won't cause strong social disgust at all, after all, these two reasons are quite reasonable, and most men's families can understand it.
What really makes the bride price taste bad is the latter two phenomena:
The first phenomenon, with the further widening of the gap between the rich and the poor in society, as well as the development of the Internet, women's desires are infinitely amplified, originally she talked with you well, as long as 100,000 dowry, but the next day she brushed up on a news, a girl who looks inferior to her somewhere in Jiangxi, asked for a bride price of 880,000, which will allow her to compare, so that there may be a situation of price increase in situ, the whole society in this wind of comparison, continue to increase, the bride price is also from the initial thousands of yuan, It has become a sky-high bride price of up to one million now.
In addition to the rising tide of the bride price, what is even more unacceptable is the ownership of the bride price.
As I mentioned earlier, the wedding supplies in the 50s and 70s were for the new family, and people at that time thought very clearly that marriage was the help of both parents to a new family, and the woman's parents would never take an extra penny.
And now? Many families marrying their daughters are actually selling their daughters, first looking for a son-in-law to ask for a bride price of 300,000 yuan, and then changing hands to marry their sons, their sons are indeed married to daughters-in-law, but the life of daughters and sons-in-law after marriage is extremely miserable, I have seen a real case around me, the man in order to marry the woman, the loan to 500,000 bride price, and then the woman's younger brother immediately took the money to buy a Mercedes-Benz, and the rest of the money was squandered for more than a year, Then the man and the woman worked hard together to pay off their debts after marriage, and they didn't even dare to eat more meat.
In addition to helping younger brothers, there are also selfish parents who directly take the bride price to support the elderly, and do not give their daughters any support after marriage, which is completely to exchange their daughter's life happiness for money.
What really makes the bride price become a shouting and beating for everyone is actually this group of selfish people.
So I have always had two sincere suggestions for the bride price:
First, the amount of the bride price must be controlled, and if it exceeds a certain amount, it will be punished as human trafficking.
Second, the provisions of the law should be clearly supported, and the bride price and dowry should all belong to the new family, and the control should be in the hands of the husband and wife themselves.
I believe that as long as these two steps are achieved, the society will not have such strong resistance to the bride price.
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