On February 13, 2023, the state issued the Opinions on Doing a Good Job in Promoting Rural Revitalization in 2023.

This is also the central document 1 issued by the State Council in 2023, which gives detailed guidance in stabilizing the production and supply of agricultural products, strengthening the construction of agricultural infrastructure, strengthening the support of agricultural science and technology equipment, consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, promoting the high-quality development of rural industries, broadening the channels for farmers to increase their income and become rich, promoting the construction of livable and suitable beautiful countryside, and improving the rural governance system.

Among them, in improving the rural governance system, it is explicitly mentioned to strengthen the construction of spiritual civilization in rural areas. One of them explicitly mentioned that it is necessary to carry out special rectification of outstanding problems in key areas such as high-priced bride price and large-scale management.

This document of the Central Committee is very timely, and it is estimated that "selling daughters" will not work.

In recent years, a wave of high bride price has arisen in many places in China. Judging from the amount of bride price in various provinces, many provinces have reached more than 654.38+10,000 yuan, and some provinces have even reached more than 200,000 yuan.

Moreover, these betrothal gifts are still rising. If this trend continues, it is not ruled out that the bride price in some provinces may reach 300,000 or even 500,000 in the future, so that many rural families can't afford to marry their wives.

For example, the picture below shows the distribution of bride price in each province summarized by netizens.

From this distribution map, the bride price in Zhejiang and Fujian has reached more than 200,000, while the bride price in Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Hubei, Shanghai, Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Gansu and Hunan has reached 6.5438+million.

Although this data is only a rough figure, it doesn't mean that all people need such colorful gifts when they get married, but this distribution map of bride price actually reflects the basic situation of the country at present.

Generally speaking, the bride price in some eastern areas is really expensive, so that many families can't afford the high bride price.

After all, the income level of rural residents in China is relatively low at present.

According to the data published by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2022, the per capita disposable income of Chinese residents was only 36,883 yuan, of which the per capita disposable income of rural residents was only 20 1.33 yuan.

According to the current income level in rural areas, it costs 200,000 yuan to marry a daughter-in-law, which means that a person's income alone will cost 10 years' savings.

But this is only part of the expenditure. In fact, at present, young men in rural areas want to marry a daughter-in-law, not only to pay a high bride price, but also the woman may ask for a house, a car and furniture, so the overall marriage is estimated to be 500,000 to 600,000 or more.

Five or six hundred thousand dollars is nothing to the residents of first-and second-tier cities. It is estimated that they can earn so much money after two or three years of hard work. But for ordinary rural families, it is hard to say that they have to pay so much money. Therefore, in order to meet the requirements of women, in fact, many male families may borrow money from relatives and friends to hold their sons' weddings.

This kind of wedding is actually very twisted. On the surface, the woman's family has been greatly satisfied and has great vanity, but this is actually no different from "selling her daughter."

After the bride's family accepted a high-priced bride price and married her daughter, it is very likely that her daughter will pay off her debts with the man, and it is her own daughter who will eventually suffer.

Therefore, this huge bride price is very distorted, and it is very undesirable for the elderly to base their vanity on the pain of their children.

In recent years, many people in the society are calling for greater efforts to rectify this distorted huge bride price, and now everyone finally sees the dawn.

After the central document no.3. 1 It is required to intensify efforts to punish high-priced bride price, and it is believed that all localities will actively introduce various measures to punish high-priced bride price.

But how to correct this is a great challenge.

After all, both men and women collect bride price through personal accounts, and most of them are collected in cash. There is no transfer voucher, and the two sides have not signed relevant contracts, so it is difficult to trace how much bride price the woman has received.

Besides, there are more than 20 million male bachelors in China at present, and most of them are mainly distributed in rural areas. It is really difficult to find a wife in these rural areas, because many women prefer to develop in big cities, which makes it difficult for marriageable men in rural areas to find a partner, which is also an important reason why the bride price can go up and up in many places.

Therefore, how to solve the high bride price not only needs to carry out special rectification, but also needs to break the old concept and break the threshold in everyone's heart.

To achieve this effect, I think the most fundamental measure is to promote the balanced development of population and cities.

On the one hand, it is necessary to severely crack down on all kinds of patriarchal behaviors and make the gender structure of the population tend to be balanced. Only when the number of men and women is equal will the bargaining power of women be weakened.

On the other hand, it is necessary to curb the trend of population development to big cities, slim down big cities and let the population gradually return to small and medium-sized cities. This can not only reduce the burden of big cities, but also make small cities have more people and give young men in small places more choices.