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Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

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Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#61

Post by thrower123 »

watwut wrote: post #18
quotemstr wrote: post #3

Markets always appear next to scarcity, and laws against market operations always drive transactions underground, because supply and demand must be made to meet somehow. Without expressing approval per se of what's happening in China, I do have to express a total lack of surprise that people react to scarcity in one area in the same way they react to scarcity in every other. Extreme gender imbalances are societally d…

Are gender imbalances destabilising historically? It woild be interesting to see the history. After wars there was lack of men in some areas. Excess of men was during gold rush, in Australia and is in silicon valley. (I am not sure how much it proves or disproved theory.)

In China, yes, very much so. Historically, when gender imbalances have gotten to the levels in the current statistics, rebellion and violent millenarian religious cults have found fertile ground, when times turned tougher. Having an excess of downtrodden single men without much to lose is not a great situation for stability anywhere.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#62

Post by puranjay »

williamdclt wrote: post #36
puranjay wrote: post #28

I would like to see an equivalent study on Indian weddings. All the people I know who got married recently spent between $50-$100k on their wedding. My own wedding was about $50k. Food alone was nearly $20k (over 1200 guests were invited - which was on the low end)

Genuine question: how is it possible to invite 1200 people? I can't imagine that you and your partner know 600 people each, I'd have a hard time finding 100 people to invite if I needed too

I had just about 10 friends. Wife had the same number.

My father in law has lived all his life in the same city. Has a lot of friends, acquaintances, and relatives. Inviting them to the wedding becomes a social compulsion in such cases.

Indian weddings are strange in that the bride and groom hardly matter. It's essentially an event hosted by their parents.

Trying to get my parents to back down from a big wedding was a futile exercise as well. For them, it was a matter of "shame" if they couldn't host a large wedding

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#63

Post by ForHackernews »

liftbigweights wrote: post #57
blfr wrote: post #55

A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices. We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China. Journalists always push their…

Another false trope pushed by everyone... "Women are marrying later and having less kids because of career concerns, lack of maternity leave and child benefits." The countries with the best maternity leave and child benefits have the oldest marriage and lowest birth rates. And japan, where most women give up their jobs once married to start families and where the government pays women to have children have one of the…

Maybe people don't want to bring children into a world that will be worse off in many ways than the one they grew up in?

That hypothesis would correspond with the observation that it's the most educated, most long-term-focused people in (currently) stable societies that are delaying or avoiding children.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#64

Post by puranjay »

another-cuppa wrote: post #49
puranjay wrote: post #28

I would like to see an equivalent study on Indian weddings. All the people I know who got married recently spent between $50-$100k on their wedding. My own wedding was about $50k. Food alone was nearly $20k (over 1200 guests were invited - which was on the low end)

OK, but most people in the world simply can't afford that, so you must be an outlier.

People frequently take loans and sell assets to afford weddings. It's not unusual for parents to save for weddings right after their child is born.

One friend's parents sold off their car to fund their daughter's wedding

It's honestly all absurd

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#65

Post by Bombthecat »

liftbigweights wrote: post #57
blfr wrote: post #55

A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices. We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China. Journalists always push their…

Another false trope pushed by everyone... "Women are marrying later and having less kids because of career concerns, lack of maternity leave and child benefits." The countries with the best maternity leave and child benefits have the oldest marriage and lowest birth rates. And japan, where most women give up their jobs once married to start families and where the government pays women to have children have one of the…

I think media. In Brazil there was a soap opera where the main actors got ( often pregnant) pregnancy rates increased heavily during that time.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#66

Post by yostrovs »

murukesh_s wrote: post #53
williamdclt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: how is it possible to invite 1200 people? I can't imagine that you and your partner know 600 people each, I'd have a hard time finding 100 people to invite if I needed too

Oh easy, I just attended a wedding reception where over 2500 were invited. It was one of the biggest I have seen but 1000 is normal. My father had 10 siblings and my mother 6. You got to invite all their relatives, kids and your own friends, you can easily cross 1000. I guess its the huge population in India and China.

Attending weddings must be a frequent activity if you get invited when anyone within 3 or more degrees of separation is getting married. Really, how often does an average Indian attend weddings? Are expensive gifts expected?

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#67

Post by falsedichotomy »

scandox wrote: post #8
hkai wrote: post #2

I am planning to hopefully marry my girlfriend in the next couple of years and her parents are already asking for "at least a small amount like 10,000 USD", because "I'm white anyway", meaning I must be rich. Taking into account all the abuse she had to take from them, and their lazy and useless way of life, they're not getting a penny from me. Many people though feel powerless to resist and ruin themselves financial…

You’re going to enter into a relationship with the people you’re talking about (on a public forum) for the rest of your life.

western/white men who marry asian women oftentimes look down on the wife's culture or race. 'white savior complex'.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#68

Post by rahimnathwani »

throw930336 wrote: post #45
williamdclt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: how is it possible to invite 1200 people? I can't imagine that you and your partner know 600 people each, I'd have a hard time finding 100 people to invite if I needed too

In Chinese weddings, when you invite your friends, you also invite their relatives and families as well. It can definitely add up. And it's not just you inviting people, but your parents and their parents. It's not uncommon to actually not know 2/3s of the people at your wedding. The best part however is that each guest will give you a "red envelope" of money. It's basically the wedding gift. The more people you invi…

I was chatting with a retired couple. They told me that wedding red envelopes are the majority of their monthly expenditure. They're at the age where all their friends' kids are getting married. (They don't live in the capital, so I guess their rent is cheap or they own their apartment.)

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#69

Post by buckminster »

liftbigweights wrote: post #57
blfr wrote: post #55

A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices. We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China. Journalists always push their…

Another false trope pushed by everyone... "Women are marrying later and having less kids because of career concerns, lack of maternity leave and child benefits." The countries with the best maternity leave and child benefits have the oldest marriage and lowest birth rates. And japan, where most women give up their jobs once married to start families and where the government pays women to have children have one of the…

It's contraception. The solution is for the government to randomly introduce placebos into the contraceptive supply. Or just accept that, given the choice, people don't want kids that much.

Re: Marriage Costs in China Are Out of Control

#70

Post by bodas »

blfr wrote: post #55

A good start would be a law that ensures a woman’s claim on marital property in the case of a divorce. Current Chinese law makes no such provision, and thus provides a strong disincentive to marry and a very powerful incentive to charge higher bride prices. We have laws like this in Europe. Marriages keep happening later and TFRs keep plummeting. Why would it work any different in China. Journalists always push their…

China is slightly different in that the sex ratio is skewed, there's more men than women. So giving women incentives for divorce probably wouldn't affect marriage rates that much (not that I think it's a good idea)
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