A Study On Bride Price In Rural Areas Of East Gansu Province

Bride Price, a particular social phenomenon, is deeply rooted in traditional Chinese culture and long exists in the rural areas. Thus, it owns deep social and cultural origin. This paper, based on the field work of W village in East Gansu Province and the former studies, under the background that the marriage transforms from "the unity of two families" into the one paying more attention on the economic benefit of marriage two parties, from the viewpoint that the independency and decision-making power of the bride and groom become increasingly strengthened, deals with wedding price in rural areas of East Gansu Province from the perspective of cultural sociology. This paper divides the bride price into four categories: gift money especially for the bride family, a gift present to bride at the meeting, Er Cheng (money asked by the bride for furniture purchase and clothes for herself), Zhe Yi (half of the dowry paid by the husband family), describes the current situation of wedding price in rural areas of East Gansu Province, analyzes its function, innate character, cause of formation and predicts its developing tendency. The point of view presented in the paper, the same as that of other scholars, is that the bride price in rural areas of East Gansu Province shows the tendency of going up. It possesses not only positive function, which involves the function of education and inheritance, of laying a economic and social foundation for newly-built small family, of cohesion and emotion expression, but also negative function, which includes the function of limiting the freedom of marriage, aggravating the economic burden of rural families, corrupting the current tendencies in rural society, threatening the social stability. The nature of the bride price in rural areas of East Gansu Province is undergoing the transformation from the shift of property between families into the coexistence of the shift of property between families and the inheritance of property within the family, In accordance with the change of nature of the bride price, Marriage Compensation Theory could not singly explain the complexity and diversity of the bride price in rural areas of East Gansu Province. While Property Inheritance Theory and Marriage Squeezing Theory can help to better explain the change of the bride price in this area. The paper concludes that the bride and groom's pursuit of the bride price is the new element which causes the rise of the bride price, the bride price will continue to exist in the long run, the money finally received by the bride and groomfrom the bride price will gradually increase, the nature of the bride price in rural areas of East Gansu Province will undergo the transformation from the coexistence of the shift of property between families and the inheritance of property within the family into the inheritance of property within the family as the main character.