Sin Sot, when is 1,000,000 baht too much?

[whosyourdaddy]

Just tell them your friends would consider a whore if you had to pay for her and in your country usually the women pays a dowry ( pays for the wedding -5000$). Tell them you will pay for a party and you are being kind and will not charge them a dowry. Just tell them to take their dowry and shove it up their ass. It is not your custom and you will not do it. You would hate your friends asking how much you PAID for your wife.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Snake head:

"BTW, before you condemn the sin sot its worth remembering that the Thai divorce rate is around one fifth of that of the US..."

That might be the rate of those Thai couples who actually got married in the local "amphoe", doing their "long tabien" or registration bit.

Most couples only marry in a temple ceremony and there is no official record of it; neither is there any if/when they later split up.

From my observation, the rate of couples separating is much higher than in any Western country. An extremely high number of Thai families are completely dysfunctional. Why do all those women have to work, selling noodles on the footpath? Because their "husbands" have deserted them long ago, leaving them to raise their kids alone. I could list countless more examples but rather leave it.

You know what Thai women admire most about Western couples? The fact that even in old age they can be seen holding hands together, travelling together and apparently being very fond of each other (not all are, but the couples the Thai women see travelling around Thailand may well be).

How many old Thai couples have you seen enyoing each other's company in a similar way?

[ July 23, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[Guest]

steffi,

if you take chanchaos advice, i will not see you getting married. there is no "going rate". and i think you know better that you do not hold the cards according to your description. Even if your girlfriend loves you the chances that she will decide against the will of her family are very small.

if you take whosyourdaddy's advice i see you getting kicked out of the house, especially if you use that language.

[Guest]

scum_baggio,

what you said is very true in the lower village classes, it just does not help that much in steffi's case as his girlfriends's family is from upstairs, and there common law marriages do not happen that much.

but i share your feelings about dowry in general. it has caused so many suicides in the villages already, and the amounts are getting always higher. A once useful, but now completely perverted tradition.

[Guest]

Have you thought about getting her pregnant? - in order to reduce her market value.

Alternatively you agree to the 1 million and promise a cheque, remember the 3 greatest lies (although as you are in Thailand the 3 items are of course NOT lies anymore):-

1) I love you

2) the cheques in the post

3) Don't worry, I won't cum in your mouth.

Possibly number 3 will not be appropriate when talking to your in laws.

Or how about "investing" the money in Thai assets, so that using Thai accounting and valuation methods your motorbike or condo must be worth in excess of 1 Million.

or knocking up a share certificate for 1 million baht worth of shares and say you will hold onto it for safekeeping - or say you will give them your share of your investment in the Japanese Gold hidden in the Thai cave.

or what about opening a bank account in your JOINT names in your own country, but before you transfer the money to it change the signatories to you ONLY - but keep the joint names - so it impresses the locals.

[Guest]

Originally posted by flyonzewall:

"... but i share your feelings about dowry in general. it has caused so many suicides in the villages already, and the amounts are getting always higher. A once useful, but now completely perverted tradition."

... and one million seems darn high, doesn't it. As if the parents wanted to prevent the marriage, not by saying "no" (that might be considered offensive), but by putting up this massive financial hurdle.

As for the "once useful tradition" of dowry -if I may add my little bit of (unasked for) cultural background information:

The Thais picked up the tradition of dowry given to the woman from the ancient Indians: Until the Middle Ages, in India the dowry, then called shulka ("fee", "tax") was given to the woman. Things then changed, the dowry system turned around, and suddenly the man was the beneficiary.

Things remained the old way in Thailand, though - to our collective male chagrin.

Cheers, SB.

[ July 24, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[steffi]

A lots been said already ... Let me say that I believe my girlfriend loves me but she needs to see from me some proof that her family will be looked after and in general her family have concerns about what will happen to her if she gets left high and dry. They are looking out for her. I don't know if the sum they are asking for is typical or not. I think 500K is more in line with her background from what I know. Usually 1 million is reserved for wealthy families who will contribute to the finances of the bride and groom and contribute something but I don't see that happening in this case.

I've been asked to cover all costs with the 1 million and they will chip in if they have to but they've never said how much they will contribute.

I don't want any women to love me only because her family will be looked after. I have seen many encouraging signs from my girlfriend that's she's sincere towards me with her feelings but in the end I never can expect her to choose me before her family.

She's very close with her family.

Her family has always generally been very appreciative of the feelings I keep for their daughter and generally seem to be good people but there's always a sense of paying more than I should just because they think I'm rich.

The thing is I know some very wealthy ties. Hi So backgrounds and they've told me that it's much too much. When I say Hi So, I mean nearly everbody in Thailand knows the names. Family's of well known doctors and superstars.

How should it be negotiated and finally how should it be paid. This some is doable although is cleans out a good chunk of my current savings. I took most of last year off to build my relationship with my girlfriend and the IT decline has made IT work much much harder to find so I don't have as much disposable income as before the crash per se.

I'm British and Australian but also hold a US greencard and her father wants to see me go to Australia and take her there. The problem is if I do this they expect me to work there have job, house etc etc then she can come and stay with me. It generally feels like she's being held for ransom.

And the thing that frustrates me is that she never sticks up for me really. I know of a lot of thai marriages that were conducted without sinsot and from what I've seen the success storys are usually found in the modern familys who forsake tradition for their daughters happiness.

[Guest]

scum_bagio,

india's way of dealing with dowry is at times scary, over the years you start seeing a lot more women with burned faces...

as far as i know in the last 15 or 20 years the amount of dowry has risen a lot, casts which previously forbid dowry have it now, casts where dowry was more symbolic changed it into big time amounts. But, the lower middle class needs their fridges and scooters...

The traditional use here in thailand was that land was inherited mainly by the daughters, the sons got the cash and moved after marriage in with the wife's family.

now land ownership by village families went down, and what is left is shared equally between daughters and sons. what's the use of dowry now, except making life hard for poor village boys and giving the daughters to the highest bidder?

no cultural background information is unasked for. more please. and please correct me where i am wrong! endless discussions of paying 1000 baht or 1500 baht for the services tend to get a bit boring.

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scum_Baggio:

Originally posted by Snake head:

From my observation, the rate of couples separating is much higher than in any Western country. [ July 23, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

 

In the bar scene you are probably right. However in the general population I don't agree. Here are a couple of websites that give divorce rates compared to the US.

www.divorcereform.org/nonus.html

www.soulo.com/dcc/divorce.htm

Thailand has a rate of .58 per 1000 which is quite low and lower than every Western country except Italy and lower than Asian countries such as Korea and Singapore.

My own observation of the people I work with is that divorce is much less common among Thais than in the west.

[ July 24, 2001: Message edited by: Snake Head ]

[Guest]

snakehead,

numbers here in thailand won't tell you too much. as scum baggio already pointed out, most marriages in the villages never go into the registration office. so when these marriages divorce they won't appear on any statistic.

For example my own family:

two of my wife's four brothers are divorced, none of the marriages was registered. her elder sister is divorced, her marriages was registered, but not the divorce.

the third brother's marriage is in danger, and the family expects the marriage not to last. the marriage is not registered either.

the fourth brother does not want to marry. he is scared that the same is going to happen to him.

These people are part of the forgotten 40%, the smallscale farmers and landless labors. the for some reason appear in very few statistics. they are also excluded from most unemployment statistics. you would very different numbers, when somebody would bother about them.