Pricing the bridewealth: On moral embedding in the mechanism of rural betrothal gifts negotiation—case analysis based on L County, Gansu Province

Bridewealth is both a monetary as well as a cultural component of Chinese marriage. Existing research employs two major frames to examine this phenomenon: marriage market theory and gift flow theory. However, neither of them ably facilitates the study of bridewealth as a social process, namely, the negotiations that take place between senior family members representing the engaged parties to decide the appropriate monetary value of the bridewealth. This article focuses on how the negotiations are initiated and progress until both families settle on a “decent” bridewealth amount. The ultimate ethical code in relation to marriage-making lies not so much in the mutual understanding of the two families as in their strategies to follow the moral sanctions of the dahang while negotiating a price that deviates from it. The necessity of adhering to the dahang and the strategic efforts to morally legitimize a price that fluctuates from it are central to theorizing the normative embeddedness of bridewealth in the moral fabric of the community.