Dowry and wedding gifts are a concern for those about to get married in rural China, as the groom's parents must give the bride a sum, but not to elevate the woman or help her furnish the marital home, but to convince her to agree to the engagement.

The payment of the dowry and the presentation of gifts are preceded by the marriage contract, and the groom does not recover all that he paid in the event of a failure of the engagement.

Missing women

The average annual wage in Chinese cities in 2021 was about $ 15,7, according to data from Statista, while rural people and agricultural workers have an average annual income of only $ 7.4,5, and the minimum wage in China falls to $ <>.<>,<>, according to data from Take profit.

The average dowry in China has reached about $20,50 in recent years, according to a report by the New York Times, and reached <>,<> in provinces such as Jiangxi and Hebei, according to a report by Bloomberg, which the Chinese government considered a crisis that must be solved.

The current situation came as one of the consequences of imposing the one-child policy for 4 decades between 1979 and 2015, with the aim of limiting population growth by limiting the birth of families to one child only, which families met with systematic abortions for females, and retaining males to be a support to their parents in old age.

This resulted in an imbalance in the number of male and female births, and this was more evident in rural areas, where there are more men today than females, and every 100 females corresponds to 116.5 men, according to the website "Statista".

Although China's one-child policy was officially terminated in 2015, the results of the policy are visible among men and women of current marriageable age.

The imbalance between the numbers of the sexes leads to several social and economic problems, such as difficulty in finding a partner, loneliness, distortion of labour markets, increased savings rates, reduced consumption, high rates of sexual crimes and human trafficking.

The imbalance in the number of male and female births came as one of the consequences of imposing the one-child policy in China for 4 decades (Pixels)

Excess in singles

Demographers have estimated the effects of gender imbalances: men in villages have tended to learn to cook and do household chores, the real estate market has stagnated, and singles have built luxury homes in cities to attract women.

On the other hand, men are marginalized in rural communities if they do not marry, and single families consider "dry branches" for failing to extend the family tree.

Under these conditions, dowries increased, and the potential groom was required to give the bride's family an exorbitant dowry in exchange for the family's satisfaction with a groom who lives in the village and is not a resident of the city where health, education and a better future for grandchildren are better.

In parts of rural China, expensive dowries are seen as a form of care for the bride's parents, paying off part of the medicine and food bills spent on raising her.

Marriage by government decision

Chinese citizens from villages in 7 different provinces posted complaints on the e-government portal about dowries they could not pay, demanded that officials pay their debts, and the government has already acted.

The ruling Communist Party organized seminars for women over marriageable age to sign a pledge to refrain from asking for dowry and marriage gifts, and municipal officials published that the seminars aimed to stop the backward dowry habit, and for women to do their part to start a new civilized era.

Municipalities have also launched propaganda campaigns to demand that women not compete with each other and boast of having the highest dowry, and Chinese media have described women of marriageable age as "greedy" and "exploiters of the situation of young people", considering them the cause of the societal crisis.

In recent months, municipal officials have also tried to intervene to stop the dowry habit in other ways, positioning themselves as part of the family marriage negotiations between the groom's and bride's families.

In contrast, the government's efforts have not been well with some who have seen them as attempts to demonize women and blame them for the results of the government's decades-long one-child policy.