| Both men and women will use many strategies in the process of marriage to increase their social capital and symbolic capital,as Bourdieu puts forward in his marriage strategy theory.Interaction between men and women’s families is mainly the consultation about the bride price.Essentially,it is strategic practice under the marriage market background and influenced by many factors like historical,economic,social and cultural factors.This paper takes bride price as a point of penetration and reveals the marriage practices in the S village,Henan province.Strategic consultations among men,women and their families are described in detail.Explorations from various angles are established for the problem that bride price rising sharply.This paper argues that the high bride price is a strategy for groups at the bottom of stratified society to participate in social competition.The women’s bold claim,men’s actively raising and the demonstration effect within a certain area all push up the bride price.The second chapter describes the S village contemporary marriage customs and summarizes the local bride price change since 1980 s.Marriage payments flow through all contemporary marriage customs.The third chapter shows that “marking the price clearly” and “bargaining for the price” exist in the process of determining the bride price in the marriage market.The men’s family’s economic condition,the men’s parents’ labor ability,number of brothers all become the dominant objective factors of the bride price.On both sides in the game of the bride price,the women’s bold claim,the men’s actively raising the price to make up for the defect or strengthen competitiveness and the demonstration effect in the same area all push up the bride price.All these factors exacerbate the men’s bride price payment difficulties.The fourth chapter discusses the tremendously high bride price phenomenon.Analysis is made based on the dominant factors of the bride price in the consultation.This paper argues that sex-ratio imbalance of men and women of marriage age is the direct cause of the high bride price.Men in less developed areas are in bad situation in the national marriage market because of the social differentiation and growing competitiveness.Outflow of female resources intensifies the competition for men.Pushing up the bride is a means to win a mate for men and to earn more capital to realize upward social mobility for women.Family ethics changes make it possible for bride price rising.The matter of face contributes to the popularity of high bride price under the community situation. |
