Dowry - Gifts from the Bride’s Side

Posted by Jan

May 7, 2008

*continue from the previous dowry post*

Honestly, I didn’t know about this part at all. I knew that the parents and close relatives of the bride usually give her gold jewelries as gifts. I didn’t know people still see this a status symbol, a.k.a how wealthy the bride’s family is. When my mom asked me “What does his parents want you to bring (when you married into his family)?” I just gave her a blank stare. Apparently, in her days, aside from giving back half of the stuff from the dowry, the bride would need to bring items for the house, such as the mattress, the pillow cases, bed spread & quilt with phoenix and dragon design to signify the wedding, new slippers, robes, pants (I assume PJs?), wallet, belt, a trunk made of wood to put everything in and lastly…a toilet kettle (痰罐). First question that came to mind: if we’re going to give back half the dowry to the groom’s family, why don’t the groom just keep half of the dowry so we can save a trip on driving stuff back to his place?

Anyways, the more important questions are: Do I really need to bring all this?! A toilet kettle?! Who uses it nowadays?! A trunk made of wood? No thanks, his room doesn’t have enough space. Phoenix and dragon quilt? Isn’t that a bit…cheesy to sleep in? So I basically said “No I’m not bringing this” to everything on the list. The only thing I believe we should provide is…the tea set used for the tea ceremony.

Miscellaneous Items

Apparently, since Al is getting married before his older brother, he has to buy his brother a pair of pants and he has to walk under that pair of pants before the wedding. I laughed out loud at the thought of Al crawling under Ken’s pants. Of course we’re talking about just hanging it somewhere and Al walking underneath it. In my case, Al have to get a pair of shoes for my brother as a gift. I told my brother to get a pair of shoes for himself and I’ll “reimburse” him with $100.

Visit the Chinese Wedding Dowry Items List for more details on the items.