Over the past two decades, China's Internet practitioner community has been expanding. In the eyes of most people, they have similar portraits: concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou, mainly with undergraduate and graduate degrees, income higher than average, overtime has become the norm, the structure is relatively flat, and the old age is eliminated...... Wait a minute;
In terms of personal life, serious involution also makes them need to make more reasonable use of every vacation to complete arrangements such as visiting relatives and getting married.
On the eve of the 2024 Chinese New Year, Sina Hummingbird contacted 100 practitioners from major factories in Beijing's Houchang Village, Wangjing, Wudaokou, Zhichun Road, and Hangzhou to try to understand their attitudes and stories about bride price.
In the exchange, they have confusion and sadness, but also good memories and experiences.
Due to space limitations, we selected 5 of the stories and told them in the first person with 100 sample statistics, trying to provide reference for more in-laws and newlyweds during the long vacation while recording.
The narrators in the article are pseudonyms, and the data in the article are from 100 employees of major Internet companies, survey time: January 22, 2024 - January 28, 2024
The distribution of the sample of 100 major Internet companies
The distribution of the sample of 100 major Internet companies
Lee Lee operates in 2023 to discuss marriage
Inner Mongolia & Inner Mongolia bride price 160,000
My partner and I are both from Inner Mongolia, I work in a large Internet factory in Beijing, he is in the system of his hometown, and he has gone around and around for 5 years in different places for many years, but he didn't expect to break up because of the bride price.
The average bride price in Inner Mongolia is 160,000, the mid-range is 180,000, and the people with better conditions give 200,000.
At the end of 2023, I will be 30 years old and should be married, although my boyfriend and I will quarrel over consumption in the past few years: for example, once he blamed me for eating a 70-yuan breakfast, but trust and habit made me decide to take a step forward.
In the eyes of others, we are a couple with "disparities in conditions": my parents are full professors, I went to the UK to study and get a master's degree, and my boyfriend is from an ordinary working family, and he has two academic qualifications.
In my parents' mind, the right match is a hurdle that cannot be bypassed. In the past few years, my parents have been urging me to break up with him, but I have difficulty parting.
In the eyes of his parents, I am a woman who will only spend his son's money, according to what her mother once said under my Douyin account: "I think since you don't marry my son, why do you drag him so much?"
The distribution of the sample of 100 major Internet companies
On October 1, 2023, after I continued to convince my parents, in the box of a restaurant in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, the six of us finally sat together.
This was also the first time my boyfriend and parents met my dad. Because my dad's attitude has always been clear: for the past 5 years, my boyfriend and his parents have always wanted to meet my dad, but he has always refused.
What I didn't expect was that my father, who had always been resolute, actually led the conversation that day, first mentioning the issue of the house, and the two children were going to get married, and they had to have a wedding house.
My boyfriend's mother said that they had a house in their hometown that could be used as a wedding house, but my parents said that they wanted to sell this house and buy a house in Beijing, because I would definitely be working in Beijing.
I remember that his parents only said these few words in turn: it is too difficult to buy a house in Beijing, we really don't have the ability, we don't have the ability. Basically, my dad was talking all night, and the only time his parents spoke was "crying poor".
Three hours later, my dad suddenly got up and said, "Okay, we all know, let's go back and talk about it." I know my dad is holding back the fire, but on the surface he is still polite.
After that, I spent the entire 7 days of the National Day holiday in the negotiation of the bride price. My dad is back to being reticent, and only my mom says that if the house can't be won, or talk about the bride price and the three golds.
So my boyfriend and I said that you should follow the average of 160,000 bride price in Inner Mongolia, go back and ask your parents, we don't want more, let's just follow the average level.
The next day, he came back and told me that the bride price could only be 60,000 yuan. Just because the bride price for his brother and daughter-in-law is 50,000 yuan, his parents have to have a bowl of water, and see that my conditions are better, so add 10,000 yuan to me. I told my dad at the time that he almost vomited blood.
My dad said: "Their family is an empty glove white wolf, my girl is so good, if he can marry you, their ancestral grave in the last life will smoke and burn high incense, and they will only give 60,000 yuan." ”
The distribution of the sample of 100 major Internet companies
There are also three golds, which is a blessing for our family for a long marriage, My boyfriend's parents' budget for three golds is only 5,000 yuan, and at the current market gold price, this price can't buy a gold.
But on second thought, their family may have no idea about the current market gold price. I took his mother to visit a Chow Tai Fook, when I went shopping, I would see a few gold bracelets, and then the clerk was also trying on me, there are solid ones and hollow ones, I think I must want a solid one, but the price is about 20,000 yuan. His mother said it was too expensive.
Then I looked at the gold necklace again, and there were two styles that I liked very much, but his mother pointed to the expensive one and said that it didn't look good at all.
Later, after visiting the gold store, they raised the budget of the three gold to 20,000 yuan, but the bride price was not talked about.
I'm fed up with this kind of bargaining, and what breaks me down even more is my boyfriend's attitude. I always thought he loved me and stood on the same side as me, but his attitude and what he said felt like a person I didn't know.
He said to me, "Are you going to force my parents to death?" My parents are so old, and you still let them pay so much money, do you know that my brother and his wife, now their parents pay the mortgage on that house every month, and they are already very annoyed.
I would think of the future when my parents and I might have a dispute over something that would have involved the interests of our little family.
I think it's good if first he looks to me, and second he looks to the right things, I think it's good, but if he looks to his parents, whether it's right or wrong, I think it's terrible.
The distribution of the sample of 100 major Internet companies
In the 5 years we have been together, as long as we don't talk about money, everything seems to fit well. When I was in school in the UK, we would make 4 or 5 hours of video calls every day, as if we were in porridge on the phone with him except for class.
After coming to Beijing to work, he would come to me from Inner Mongolia every two weeks. He has always been handsome, warm, and very caring in my eyes.
This time it can be regarded as a pass
The bride price saw something else.
After we broke up, I will also see his mother's latest message on my Douyin: "To put it bluntly, it didn't work out that time, your family just looks down on our poor family, but poor can't be poor for a lifetime." "I didn't pay attention.
Now when I think of my ideal other half, the first thing that comes to my mind is the spirit of giving, I hope he will be willing to make some sacrifices for me, and I hope that his family is more open-minded, not the kind with many rules and regulations.
After we broke up, my parents have introduced me to 3 blind dates, although I can't enter a new relationship yet, but I don't seem to be rejecting the "right match" anymore, and the next time I'm going to talk about the bride price after half a year of dating.
Hulk programmer 30 years old married in 2021
Jilin & Jilin bride price of 100,000 yuan
I am 30 years old and have been working in a large factory for 8 years. My wife is 29 years old and has been studying in Beijing for 8 years.
Regarding the bride price, we actually did not deliberately discuss it, and the two families have different concepts of the bride price. Her family didn't want it at first, but my family insisted on giving it, and finally ended with my mother giving 100,000 yuan.
My wife and I are both from Yanbian, Jilin Province, and although we were born in the same land, we have two very different childhoods as two only children.
My parents were both from rural areas, my father worked in wood processing and my mother did not have a job and had been taking care of me at home for decades. As a child from a rural family, I learned from a young age that the economic conditions of my family were not very good, but my parents still gave everything for me.
Until I graduated from university, my family did not buy a house, and I always rented a house next to my school. Every time I moved to a new school, my parents would move to the neighborhood and take care of me wholeheartedly.
Although my parents attached great importance to my education, they did not have the same strict requirements for my studies as other parents who wanted their children to become successful children.
From a young age, my mother taught me that I must be a good person and an upright person, and my father taught me that people must be righteous. For them, nothing else is as important as being a human being.
2021-2024 bride price statistics
Compared to my parents, my father-in-law and mother-in-law were much stricter about their children's education. When I was in high school, my wife was good at liberal arts, but my father-in-law chose to let her study science because he thought it was important to develop a scientific mindset. But in the face of physical chemistry, which I really didn't understand, my wife failed the college entrance examination without surprise.
My father-in-law was very disappointed at the time, and this emotion was deeply imprinted in my wife's heart and became her heart disease.
My father-in-law was from Zhejiang University, but after graduation, he did not choose to take the postgraduate examination like many of his classmates, but went to the civil service examination, and stayed in the customs for the rest of his life.
I'm not sure if my father-in-law has regretted it over the years, but I think he does, so I attach great importance to my wife's studies and hope that she will be able to go to graduate school in the future.
Naturally, after graduating from college, my wife chose to go to graduate school, but in the end, because of the difference of 1 point, she was transferred to another school. But compared to her own dissatisfaction, I remember that moment, my father-in-law was very happy.
After 4 years of working and studying in Beijing, we have successfully ushered in our sixth anniversary. On Chinese New Year's Eve from 2020 to 2021, I proposed to her. On the 26th day after May Day, we received our certificates.
But to be honest, even if I officially got the red book, I didn't feel too excited. Because before this, we have been getting along like husbands and wives for many years, and the marriage certificate is just a legal proof. So I didn't think much about the bride price until my mother reminded me of it.
2021-2024 bride price statistics
I remember it was a normal day. I had dinner and called my mother on a video to mention the marriage. Although our family had already acquiesced to this matter, my mother was still very happy to hear it, and then solemnly asked me how much the other party needed for the bride price, and asked me to pay attention to it, and not to neglect others.
In my thoughts, it is normal for a woman's family to marry a girl to someone else's family and need a little bride price. But from falling in love to getting married, my wife never raised the issue of bride price with me.
At my mother's behest, when I asked my wife how much the bride price would cost, she said that her parents didn't say they wanted a bride price, and she didn't want it.
To my surprise, my mother's attitude was very resolute. She said no, she had to give.
My parents-in-law don't want a bride price, perhaps because of my family background. After years of getting along, their family has long understood that we are not a particularly good family.
In my limited memory, I feel that my mother has always had a very low self-esteem. Maybe it's because of my family's family conditions, maybe it's because she hasn't worked at home, or maybe she doesn't think she has read much.
I remember when I was a child, I had a quarrel with my mother and ran away from home, and my father chased me out on a motorcycle, picked me up in the car, and took me to relax.
Amid the rumbling sound of the engine, I sat in my father's arms and listened to him tell me about my mother's hardships, and finally he told me to be more considerate of my mother.
Along the way, my father's eyes looked ahead, full of deep meaning. It wasn't until I grew up that I realized that behind my mother's dear, there was a deep fear and uneasiness.
The day the bride price is finalized, it is not a special day. In fact, there are very few particularly high bride prices in the northeast, and the people around them generally give an auspicious number, such as 66,666 and 88,888.
But in order to give her in-laws a decent marriage, and to take care of her own face among relatives and friends, my mother thought about it again and again at home, and finally told me in the video that it was our family's intention to give 100,000 yuan.
On the day I received the certificate, my mother called me in a video and reminded me that it was time to give the bride price. Because of the epidemic, the two parents have never been able to see each other, although they are far away, but the mother is very concerned about the bride price. So that night, I transferred money from one card to another, and remarked the bride price of 100,000 yuan.
After receiving the bride price, my wife made a video call to her home to inform her of the incident, and my father-in-law and mother-in-law also gladly accepted it.
When I reported this to my mother, she was smiling. At this point, this marriage has been settled in her heart.
Since graduation, I have been working in Dachang for 8 years, which has also reduced a lot of burden on my family.
Over the years, I sent money to my mother from time to time, and later helped my family buy a house. Now that I am married, everything is developing in a good direction.
If I had children in the future, I would probably give everything I could, just like my parents. But I always believe that if you have a good relationship, the bride price is not very important. However, if it is a son, it depends on how much the other party's parents want (bride price). If the financial conditions allow, we will give as much support as we can.
Chubby Tiger Fat producer got married in 2014
Beijing & Hubei bride price of 200,000 yuan
I'm 40 years old, and this year is both my 10th year working on the internet and the 10th anniversary of my marriage.
The bride price was agreed on in the winter of 2013, at my parents' house in Beijing. I am from Beijing, my father was born in Beijing, and when my mother was 1 year old, she came to Beijing with her family to seek medical treatment because of illness, and then stayed.
My parents-in-law are from Hubei and live in a third-tier city. The city is small, crossed by the Yangtze River, and you can still see tin freighters shuttling across the river.
Until the age of 70, my father-in-law used to swim 1-2 times between the banks of the river with a thin rope wrapped around his waist at one end and an inflated bicycle inner tube attached to the other.
In 1998, when the flood water was flowing downstream, my father-in-law led the teachers and students of the school to rescue the dam together. He told me that the pipe gushing is the constant gushing of water from one bowl after another.
Before his father-in-law retired, he was the principal of a local art high school. Before that, he was a physics teacher at a key high school. At the age of about 40, he was transferred to a regular secondary school as the principal.
During his tenure, he advocated improving the college entrance examination rate by carrying out art examination education, which changed the fate of the school and gave many children who were not suitable for exam-oriented education a chance to succeed.
To this day, walking side by side with him on the streets of the small town, from time to time someone will take the initiative to come over and nod and shout: "Hello Principal X!" I have the impression that every time we continue to move forward, he will be in a particularly good mood.
Statistics on bride price of 200,000 yuan and above
But in Beijing, he and his mother-in-law are a little reserved. At least on that winter night in 2013, he seemed a little cramped. Although they had met many times before.
On the couch in my living room, he sat side by side with his mother-in-law on his knees. On the opposite side is the future in-laws, and on the left is his daughter and future son-in-law.
Because of the heating area in Hubei, they did not have the habit of entering the house to undress at that time, and they had the impression that their father-in-law's hands would often be on their knees.
I was the only one who didn't look very serious, slumped back on the couch. Because my waist is not good, I work more than 10 hours a day all year round, which causes a patch of growth in my spine, and my legs will be numb from time to time like electricity.
Another reason for the relaxation is that I already knew in advance that my parents decided to give 200,000 yuan as a bride price.
I was 30 years old at the time, and although I had worked for 8 years, I had never worked in a large factory, so I had neither saved any money nor had any concept of income. Didn't even think about what to do if the parents-in-law felt that the bride price was not enough?
Maybe I subconsciously think that my parents-in-law don't have a strong insistence on a certain number.
The first time I met my parents-in-law was around 2011. At that time, my wife and I had just confirmed our relationship, and it happened that my father-in-law, mother-in-law, and mother-in-law's sister came to Beijing for a visit.
I volunteered to drive the car. The premise is not to disclose the relationship between me and my wife, and to be a friend.
Because I have some social difficulties, I will have a severe stutter when I am nervous, and I am also afraid that the future is uncertain, and I feel that I have met my parents, and if I can't make it to the end, I will always feel guilty in my heart.
I remember dropping the family off at our destination that day, my wife whispered to me that her mother and little aunt had been watching me and whispering.
I didn't pay attention, but I remember that after getting out of the car, my father-in-law stared ahead for a while, not looking at me or anyone else, as if he was seriously looking at the city where his daughter lives and works.
Statistics on bride price of 200,000 yuan and above
In fact, the relationship between parents-in-law is not very harmonious. Because of that special time, my father-in-law was in high school, the country canceled the college entrance examination, and he worked as a fitter in a factory for 8 years, and it was also during this period that I was introduced to my mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law worked in a factory very early because of her poor family background (there are 8 brothers and sisters in the family), although she did not go to high school, she was very beautiful when she was young, and even now that she is old, the salesperson in the mall will say that she looks like Gui Yalei.
But in 1977, when the two were preparing to talk about marriage, the country resumed the college entrance examination, and the father-in-law was admitted to a normal college with the foundation of the third term.
My father-in-law said that if he had prepared well, he would have done better. He was so confident in his intellect that he once told me that when he was a fitter, he won the championship of the city Go competition.
After graduating, my father-in-law became a teacher, and my mother-in-law worked in a printing shop until she retired.
I remember my mother-in-law telling me a story about an explosion in a firecracker factory near my mother-in-law's factory on the eve of the Chinese New Year, and many workers' limbs were shattered into nearby tree branches.
Workers and passers-by gathered under the tree to look around, tilting their heads and trying to identify which part was from someone they knew.
Mother-in-law's stories are usually rougher and more down-to-earth than father-in-law's. If you meet for the first time, you usually think of her as a straightforward person.
Whenever we came to our own house, she always took off her clothes and started cleaning, which lasted for hours, whether we asked my aunt to clean up in advance or not.
But I feel that her thick lines may be just a disguise.
When watching a movie or series together, she seems more serious than everyone else.
Because her father-in-law didn't give her face, she would secretly cry in the bathroom. My father-in-law sometimes unintentionally brings up the past that my mother-in-law was a worker and made friends who were not of high quality.
Whenever a similar moment arises, I will use smoking as an excuse to walk away for about 10 minutes, and then sit next to her, pretending not to care, and ask: "Mom, last time in which mall, people said that you came like Gui Yalei?" Sometimes Liu Xuehua and Pan Hong are used.
Most of the time, my mother-in-law will smile when she hears it. Sometimes it's painful a little longer, sometimes it's pretending to be happy to show me, repeating the story of how young I was and how young I still look younger than my peers when I get older.
I'm pretty sure my mother-in-law was comforted by my words and made her feel that there was a man in the family who cared about her feelings.
I also know that even if she occasionally shows a strong side towards her father-in-law, it is just a counterattack on her past. In my eyes, she is sensitive and kind-hearted.
Maybe in the winter of 2013, I already had that judgment. So when my mother said that she wanted to give 200,000 bride price and asked if it was okay, I didn't remember too many images.
I don't have any repetition on this topic, it's like being asked if I need to refill a cup of tea.
But in my memory, I still have one detail. That night, my mother-in-law and my mother muttered for a long time, and I remembered one of them. My mother-in-law told my mother in Hubei Mandarin: "They (my wife and I) have a common language, and they are still discussing it in the early hours of the morning. ”
My mom didn't remember that because I had asked her many years later.
I guess my mom was still immersed in the etiquette of "staying modest". She probably didn't know that the other mother, sitting across from her, saw in her daughter and son-in-law what she had longed for. Perhaps more important than the bride price.
At the age of 40, the church is ashamed, but in my story, there is some mutual understanding that transcends some of the world's fixed figures.
Xiaojin operates to get married in 2023
Inner Mongolia & Hubei bride price of 100,000 yuan
I am 28 years old, from Inner Mongolia, and I have been working in a major Internet company for almost two years, and my husband is 32 years old from Hubei Province and works in a state-owned enterprise.
We will get the certificate in June 2023 and hold the wedding at the end of the year. The bride price was originally said to be 131,400, but in the end it was only 100,000. I didn't think much about it at the time and accepted it calmly.
But if I had known that the rest would be like that, I wouldn't have compromised.
My husband's family is special, he was originally a single parent, and his mother died of illness in 2012. Later, his father was introduced to remarry, and their family became a reorganized family.
Maybe because of this awkward relationship, my husband rarely communicates with his father, and he can't make phone calls a few times a year, and the father and son are very unfamiliar.
In my limited few contacts, I felt that my husband's family ties were very weak. His father is a person who doesn't like to express himself, and he also has an older sister in Shanghai, and he doesn't have much contact with the family, so the relationship between sister and brother is not close.
I don't know how this cold atmosphere in their family came about, maybe it had something to do with her mother's death. I heard my husband say that since her mother left, his father has been emotionally closed. And since then, there has been less communication between father and son.
For him, home is like a cold ice cellar.
However, compared to the taciturn time with my family, my husband is much more cheerful when he is with me.
He and I both studied in Wuhan, but we were not from the same school. In 2017, we met because we participated in the same salon event, and in 2018, we were together. In 2019, I came to Beijing for graduate school, and after graduation, I successfully joined a major Internet company and has been working in Wuhan for a Ph.D. until now.
The first time we discussed bride price was around 2020, and I brought it up first. Actually, my parents didn't ask for it, but I think that if you get married, you should have a bride price. I knew that my parents would probably not ask for it, and this money would definitely be given to our small family in the end, so I proposed 131,400.
At first, it was not too turbulent when talking about the bride price, although his father finally cut the bride price by tens of thousands.
At that time, his father felt that there was no such kind of bride price with a decimal point, saying that he could only give a whole number: 100,000. At that time, I always felt that his father was not easy, and I thought that I must honor his father well in the future, and it didn't matter how much or little the bride price was, so I also agreed to 100,000 yuan.
His dad had a passbook in which he saved money specifically for my husband's marriage, which was said to have 600,000 to 700,000 yuan. At the beginning, his father said that our bride price and the money to buy a house would come from here, and he would give it to us when it was time to give. I was very happy to hear it, and I didn't expect it to turn out like that.
Statistics on the bride price of 100,000 yuan
On Chinese New Year's Eve from 2021 to 2022, my husband came to Beijing to propose to me, and we agreed to get the certificate as soon as he graduated, so we began to prepare for marriage and buying a house. It's just that he didn't expect that it was really "time to give", but his father regretted it.
In 2022, his father was introduced by the villagers and found a local to remarry. This matter was not told to us by his father, but the aunt who married his father took the initiative to tell my husband when my husband came home to discuss the marriage, and my husband was stunned at the time.
Behind it was the fuse of our quarrel, and the 600,000 to 700,000 yuan that his father was going to use to buy us a house "disappeared".
At the beginning, my husband conveyed to me that his father could support 60 or 700,000 yuan, but after learning the news of his father's remarriage, his father suddenly said that he couldn't give so much, and showed my husband the passbook, and found that there were more than 300,000 in total. The huge disparity between the money to buy a house is more than half less, and I can't accept it.
At that time, I disagreed, and proposed that the bride price should be increased by another 100,000 to 200,000 yuan, at least 100,000 yuan. But what his dad meant, that's all. And the more than 300,000 yuan also includes 100,000 bride price, three gold and follow-up wedding expenses, which cannot be given now, and will be given to us when we buy a house in the future.
I was particularly angry when I learned about these situations. Regarding the bride price, I don't think I want much, and his father said that if it is less than 30,000, it will be less than 30,000, and I have no complaints. As a result, I was told that I couldn't afford to buy a house, which made me angry.
I didn't know if my emotions were right, and my parents weren't very happy when they heard it, thinking that it shouldn't be like this. Because I was already talking about marriage with their son, but his father and aunt got the certificate first, and the two of us were notified that we got the news from his aunt's mouth, and the money for the follow-up house was inexplicably reduced by half.
His father had said that he had agreed with the new appointment in advance and would give everything he had promised, but now there is nothing. In the future, his father will not provide any help, because his father also has his own small family.
Because of this, I had a big fight with my husband and broke up with him.
In my impression, my husband's family has always been very "unkind". I learned that his father's brother died at a very young age for various reasons, so there were few relatives on his grandmother's side. Later, after her mother died, even her uncle, who had only contact, stopped contacting.
I don't know if this is the reason for his father's indifference, but what I do know is that his father doesn't know how to love his children. And when I came to his family, this "indifference" finally stabbed me, so that I had to choose to escape.
But years of knowing my husband sometimes make me feel sorry for him.
Compared with his family, my family is the kind of family that thrives, and the brothers and sisters work together to make the New Year's holidays very lively. This warm atmosphere has made my husband say more than once that he likes the "human touch" of my home.
We have been together for many years, and it has always been him who has contracted the household chores, including cooking. He kept saying that his cooking was not as good as his mother's, but unfortunately I didn't taste it. Sometimes while eating, he will sigh at the same time, not the taste in his memory.
Occasionally, he would send photos of the meals to the family group, but every time he sent it to their group, the message was like a stone sinking into the sea, and there was no response, and when it was sent to my family group, my parents would praise him very enthusiastically and chat with him. That's why he likes my house a lot.
After that quarrel and breakup, he specially flew over from Wuhan to apologize. When I opened the door, I found that he was still carrying a few bags of vegetables in his hand, ready to cook for me, and I had very mixed feelings at that moment.
In fact, I can understand his dilemma in the middle. I could feel his loneliness, and I also knew that their family used to live in a very poor situation. Because his mother was sick and owed a lot of money before. He has also been apologizing for this bride price, saying that he may not have communicated well with his father, misunderstood his father's meaning, and overestimated his father's ability.
No way, I compromised again. Eventually, when we got engaged, their family gave my parents a bride price of 100,000 yuan. Before the wedding, my parents handed it back to me, and we both ended up adding it to the down payment on the house.
Even though every time I think about the bride price, I still feel aggrieved and angry. But now that it's over, I don't want to worry about it anymore. His family is not a choice for him, but our future lives are up to us.
At this stage, our goal is to save money and buy our own small house when the price stabilizes in the next few years. Go to work and get off work every day, buy vegetables and cook together, and the days go on like this.
If I have a child in the future, I will definitely prepare a bride price for him and do my best to help.
Liu Gang, an interaction designer, got married in 2020, Liaoning & Hunan, with a bride price of 100,000 yuan
I'm 40 years old and I've been working in the same big factory for 15 years, and I've been working in design, first as a designer, and then with a small team.
My wife and I fell in love in 2010, and after 9 years of long-distance love, the wedding was chosen in my hometown of Chaoyang, Liaoning, and the woman's appreciation banquet was in a county town in her hometown of Shaoyang, Hunan.
When my wife and I returned home in March 2020, we had forgotten how many times we had returned to this small county town in Hunan. His wife is a native of Suining County, Shaoyang City, and Dongkou County, which is more than 100 kilometers away from Suining County, is the birthplace of Zhang Xiaolong, the "father of WeChat".
Every time I go to Suining, I have to take a plane to Wugang City, get out of Wugang Airport, and then take a car or two for an hour or two to cross the rugged and winding highway to get to Suining County. Hunan people are good, I am very impressed, the first time I went to Hunan, my wife's brother specially borrowed a Mercedes-Benz from my uncle to pick us up, I forgot what model, but it was very luxurious.
The attitude of the parents-in-law towards the bride price is that they must have it, but they don't care about the amount, the bride price is more like an explanation for themselves and the elders in the family, and it is also like the most critical prop in this ceremony.
The wife's home is on the most prosperous street in the county, and the house was built by the mother-in-law who opened a restaurant to make money in the early years. Her house is the first building in the entire Suining County, and every time my mother-in-law chats with me, she will talk about the highlights of her life.
The mother-in-law is a very capable and high-profile career strong woman. When he was young, he opened his first restaurant in the county, stir-fried his own vegetables and became his own boss, and the money he earned built the first four-story building in the county, and then built another set.
The wife has become the most envied character of the classmates, the family has a restaurant, eats and drinks without worry, and buys food one by one. Last year, my mother-in-law came to Beijing to help us take care of the children, and there were only two days of rest in the whole year, and the rest of the time was spent taking care of the children and doing housework, and I couldn't stop for a moment.
On the contrary, the father-in-law became invisible in the process of opening a restaurant and did not appear. This is also the reason why my mother-in-law has been complaining and complaining, because these are all things that she can support alone, and at the most extreme time, she can support 20 tables of dishes for the banquet by herself, all by herself.
The father-in-law is a person full of charlatans and full of social skills. When I was young, I didn't have a relatively stable job, and my favorite thing to do is now an out-of-court mediator. Where there was a traffic accident, he was responsible for drawing an accident analysis map, at that time there was no camera, all relied on his father-in-law's pen, I don't know where he learned the technology, the traffic police and the accident both sides only recognize the judgment of the father-in-law, and later with the popularization of monitoring and national networking, the father-in-law gave up this hobby.
Once I went out with my father-in-law on an errand, and when I arrived at my destination, I realized that he was wearing completely different leather shoes, one brown and one black. At the family banquet, the father-in-law did not dress up deliberately, did not apply wax, did not shave, still wore the usual old clothes, and gaged with relatives.
Statistics on the bride price of 100,000 yuan
But it is precisely in the place where he doesn't care about the rules that he attaches great importance to the wedding and the marriage of his daughter. In the eyes of parents-in-law, the marriage of a daughter is a major event, and the bride price is more like a value recognition of the man for the woman.
I did not directly agree on the amount of the bride price with my parents-in-law, but through my wife. She gave me a few numbers, sixty-six thousand, eighty-eight thousand, one hundred thousand, one hundred hundred and eighty-eight thousand, two hundred and eighty-eight thousand, and I took the median.
After a day or two, my wife told my mother the amount of the bride price, and my mother-in-law's feedback was a little vague, but at least I was not dissatisfied with it.
On the day of the bride price, it was a day or two before the thank-you banquet, and it was cloudy all day, and my wife's core relatives and I had a meal first, with the men drinking at the main table and the women who didn't drink at the small tables on both sides.
On the eve of the wedding, my mother-in-law told me to use the red cloth she had prepared to put up my wallet. A total of 100,000, divided into two stacks, a stack of 50,000, a bundle of 10,000, a total of ten bundles, wrapped in red cloth into four squares, like a big brick.
After the first glass of wine, I saw that the time was right, and I held a boxy 100,000 yuan in both hands and handed it to my parents-in-law......
But what I didn't expect was that the money came back to me that night.
On the night of the wedding, my wife and I were about to go to bed when there was a sharp knock on the door. When I opened the door, I saw that it was my mother-in-law, holding the money wrapped in red cloth in her hand, and I thought it was too little, until my mother-in-law said, "You can take this money back, we didn't give you a dowry, and it is not easy for you to buy a house just now, so save this money quickly." ”
I was a little moved by the accident, I didn't know it would be returned, and even if it was returned, it didn't feel like it would be the original number, and I would leave some subsidies for the old couple's family.
At that time, as a native of the Northeast, I was also very kind, and I also excused myself, and finally at the insistent request of my mother-in-law, my wife accepted it.
The next day, my wife and I went to the Agricultural Bank, 500 meters from the street, and saved the money. I didn't know at the time that my mother-in-law helped me pay for the money, ranging from 300 to 500 yuan per red envelope, and the total amount was more than 10,000 yuan.
My mother-in-law's highlight moments are always accompanied by regret and unwillingness, and she will always tell me that why I didn't get out of this small county town in the first place, I should also go to Beijing and Shanghai, and the family house should be built higher.
Now, the mother-in-law is slowly relieved and puts those expectations for life on her daughter, and she can get married, have children, buy a house, and gain a firm foothold in the big city, which can be regarded as a kind of compensation.
I always feel that I don't love my wife enough, we got the certificate after the wedding first, because I want to buy her a house, with only my wife's name written on it, worth three or four million, and I paid more than 95% of the house price. The bride price is not much, but it is a heart, which shows the sincerity, and the same is true for the house.
Source: Sina Hummingbird