Marriage too costly for some rural bachelors in china Ma chi Marriage in China is certainly an expensive business to the point where males living in rural areas are finding it financially difficult to commit Migration from rural areas to cities and an imbalance between the sexes has left the cost of marriage unaffordable for some country families After the noise of firecrackers faded, Zhang Hu and his wife returned home with heavy hearts. Their son's marriage cost the impoverished family their entire savings and a debt of as much as 150,000 yuan(E16, 360). It is a huge sum for a family from a poor mountainous village in northwest Chinas Gansu province Fodianwan village is a notoriously poverty-stricken village in Qingyang."Our village is so poor that there are barely any girls willing to marry young men from here, said Mr Hu. He said villagers had been used to the soaring price of betrothal gifts, or "caili"in Chinese, the financial gift a man takes to propose to the woman he loves The less developed an area is, the more costly the marriage is for the groom, especially in a place such as the Loess Plateau in northwest China where the natural environment is harsh. Love is no longerabout tender feelings, but a matter of price, said Liu Yanwu, a professor of sociology at Wuhan University. Liu has surveyed the changes in cost of marriage in rural areas over past decades from the Seventies to the Eighties, marriage was hardly a burden to a rural family, and in the Nineties, a marriage cost the income ofa rural labour ofthree or four years on average. But since 2000, the cost has witnessed a sharpincrease today, it needs a rural labourer to work for 2o years to pay for the marriage if expenses such as house purchase are included -for a typical rural marriage the grooms family is expected to provide a house, and even a car in some better-off areas, for the newlyweds 10,000 yuan(E1,091)in 2004 to 150,000 yuan(E16,000) by last year. The und In rural areas of Qingyang, the price of betrothal gifts has jumped from arc marriage of Zhang s son almost dragged the family back to povertyMarriage too costly for some rural bachelors in China Ma Chi Marriage in China is certainly an expensive business, to the point where males living in rural areas are finding it financially difficult to commit. Migration from rural areas to cities and an imbalance between the sexes has left the cost of marriage unaffordable for some country families. After the noise of firecrackers faded, Zhang Hu and his wife returned home with heavy hearts. Their son's marriage cost the impoverished family their entire savings and a debt of as much as 150,000 yuan (£16,360). It is a huge sum for a family from a poor mountainous village in northwest China’s Gansu province. Fodianwan village is a notoriously poverty-stricken village in Qingyang. “Our village is so poor that there are barely any girls willing to marry young men from here,” said Mr Hu. He said villagers had been used to the soaring price of betrothal gifts, or “caili” in Chinese, the financial gift a man takes to propose to the woman he loves. The less developed an area is, the more costly the marriage is for the groom, especially in a place such as the Loess Plateau in northwest China where the natural environment is harsh. “Love is no longer about tender feelings, but a matter of price,” said Liu Yanwu, a professor of sociology at Wuhan University. Liu has surveyed the changes in cost of marriage in rural areas over past decades: from the Seventies to the Eighties, marriage was hardly a burden to a rural family, and in the Nineties, a marriage cost the income of a rural labour of three or four years on average. But since 2000, the cost has witnessed a sharp increase: today, it needs a rural labourer to work for 20 years to pay for the marriage if expenses such as house purchase are included – for a typical rural marriage the groom's family is expected to provide a house, and even a car in some better-off areas, for the newlyweds. In rural areas of Qingyang, the price of betrothal gifts has jumped from around 10,000 yuan (£1,091) in 2004 to 150,000 yuan (£16,000) by last year. The marriage of Zhang’s son almost dragged the family back to poverty