China’s Female Dorm Video Leaks! All Gold Diggers: $40K+ Bride Price, Plus a House for a Brother

A video about Chinese college women discussing marriage as a way to make money has sparked discussion online. Hey girls, what is it? Wang Xuan's family says we should get married after graduation, but I'm a little scared. How come? I don't think he really likes me that much. Then test him. Right, you need to test him. How? I'll tell you. First, ask him for a bride price of 288,000 yuan. Not a penny less. That sounds like a lot. You also need to ask for five pieces of gold jewelry. You deserve all that. That's what everyone does now. If he really loves you, he has to give it to you. You're getting married. You'll be together for the rest of your lives. And then there's us, your best friends. We'll be your bridesmaids. He should give each of us a red envelope with 10,000 yuan. Exactly. If he won't pay, he doesn't love you. He doesn't even respect your friends. And you have a younger brother. He's old enough to start thinking about marriage, too. Right. Your parents are getting older, too. Have Wang Xuan buy your brother a home so he can get married. Would that really work? It would give you some security. In their conversation, love is measured in bride price payments, gold, cash gifts, and property. The man is expected to cover more than his own marriage expenses. He is also expected to take on financial responsibilities for the woman's family. On Chinese social media, these ideas have developed their own familiar language. Men must be willing to spend. Women must know how to ask for more. Marriage must help them move up the social ladder. Any hesitation from a man can be seen as a lack of commitment, a lack of love, or even disrespect. In another college dorm room conversation, two women argue heatedly over bride price payments. You guys are getting married! Are you and your boyfriend getting married soon? I'm about to graduate, so we're getting engaged first. Really? How much is he paying in bride price? I'm not asking for one. You've got to be kidding. You've got to be kidding. Will your family give you a dowry? My parents would probably buy me a car for us to share, but his dad's side will have a car too. You're kidding. No bride price and you're bringing a dowry? You're practically volunteering to be their maid. You can be the maid. My parents didn't raise me just to sell me off. You're volunteering to be their unpaid maid. My boyfriend doesn't make me do chores. Your parents are the ones who make you do work. Once you marry him, he will do all the work. Your parents raised you for over 20 years, and now you're going to have someone else's children for free? These young people have not even left college, yet they already know how to calculate the financial gains of marriage. Behind that thinking is a society where money has long come first. Under decades of Chinese Communist Party rule, China has gone through a sharp change. Political campaigns once condemned private wealth. After economic reforms began, money and growth became priorities. Official messaging has kept praising hard work, success, and wealth. But social protections, fair competition, and safeguards for individual rights have not kept pace. It is increasingly hard for ordinary people to improve their lives through regular work. Housing, education, healthcare, and retirement costs weigh heavily on generation after generation. Wealth has become more than a way to live better. It is increasingly used to judge whether someone is successful or deserves respect. In this society, young men are expected to own a home, have a car, and have savings. Young women are encouraged to gain better living conditions through marriage. On the surface, marriage still brings two people together. In practice, it carries financial burdens that social institutions should be addressing. The financial calculations in dating and marriage can leave even matchmakers struggling to understand. As a matchmaker, I really don't want to complain about our female clients. But this time, I just can't help it. A while ago, a young man from Jiaxin came to me. His net worth is in the high tens of millions of yuan. He makes more than a year than I could in my entire working life. He has everything. He just wants someone gentle, pretty, sweet, easy to get along with, and understanding. I spent almost a week carefully looking for a match. They liked each other right away. In less than half a month, they were inseparable. I took my follow-up work seriously, checking every step and worrying about how things were going. I kept telling him, you need to treasure a woman like this. She's gentle and innocent. Treat her well. And I told her, he may be busy, but he's very capable. And he's generous. Just relax and be yourself. Say what you need to say and do what you need to do. They both readily agreed. Then this week, he invited her on a seaside vacation in Fujian. Of course, he was covering all the food, drinks, and activities. There was no splitting the bill. But yesterday, he sent me a screenshot of their chat. She couldn't go, so she asked him to give her the cash instead. Some women really do get in their own way. When a good life is within reach, Some people see dating as a way to make money. Meanwhile, many ordinary young people cannot even meet the basic financial requirements for marriage. Media reports have described many people in China who cannot afford to marry. One 32-year-old man had to break up with his girlfriend because he could not afford a bride price of 288,000 yuan. He said marriage would also bring mortgage payments, car payments, and the cost of raising children. A monthly income of just a few thousand yuan would not support a family. A 22-year-old delivery worker set up a tent under a bridge in Hangzhou to save on rent. He spends each day trying to cover his basic needs. He doesn't dare to think about marriage. Even official figures show how difficult the situation has become. Figures released by China's civil affairs authorities in 2026 show that about 6.7 million couples registered marriages nationwide in 2025. That was an increase from 2024, but it was still nearly half the peak of more than 13.4 million couples in 2013. In the first half of 2026, marriage registrations fell again to 3.2 million couples, down about 7.5% from a year earlier. Marriage numbers remain low. That does not mean young people in China have suddenly stopped wanting love or family. More are finding that the traditional goal of settling down and building a career comes with costs they cannot afford. In September 2026, China put the urban unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds, excluding students, at 18%. The actual rate was twice that level. College graduates face the risk of being unable to find work as soon as they leave school. Even those who find jobs may face low pay, long overtime hours, and limited room to advance. In this environment, men accuse women of caring too much about money. Women fault men for being unable to provide a better life. They attack each other online. Meanwhile, endless arguments deliberately bury the deeper problems behind high living costs, limited economic opportunities, and weak social protections. One social media user discussed the link between high bride prices and divorce. She cited research on bride prices published in June by Professor Jing Xiaoyi of Xi'an Jiao Tong University. There's been a study from Xi'an Jiao Tong University about bride prices and divorce. It found that when the payment was under 50,000 yuan, the divorce rate within five years was between 9.8% and 12%. For payments of 100,000 to 120,000 yuan, the rate was 42%. Above 200,000 yuan, it was almost 50%. Above 300,000 yuan, More than 70% of marriages ended in divorce within six months. Those numbers are striking. But looking more closely, I don't think this is a simple case of one thing causing the other. They seem more like two related outcomes. In my experience, there should be another factor influencing both. The vlogger added, It may not have been mentioned in the news, or may not have been the focus of the research. That factor is how dissatisfied the woman is with the man. A high bride price becomes a form of compensation. That dissatisfaction also makes it hard for them to maintain a happy marriage. Put simply, she doesn't think he's good enough for her. But the high payment and the divorce are results of that. This matters when deciding whether to marry. To put it bluntly, if someone demands a high bride price from you, she doesn't think you're good enough for her. In its report on the research by Jin Xiaoyi's team, Chinese media Caixin also noted that marriage costs rose sharply in parts of China after 2010. Rural men faced especially heavy financial burdens. Ordinary families struggling with bride price payments are not the only ones treating marriage as a financial transaction. Some young people with overseas degrees and relatively comfortable finances also hope marriage will help them move up the social ladder. A conversation during a matchmaking livestream shows this focus on personal gain even more directly. My parents don't get along very well, but they haven't divorced. My dad keeps going to red-light districts, so personally, I'm not all that eager to get married. I have an older brother and a younger brother. My parents have not been very good to me. We're not a particularly wealthy family, but they spent a lot to get me abroad. I got my bachelor's and master's degrees in Britain. My grades weren't especially good, but I got through. True. Let me guess, you run your own business now. You don't seem like a student or someone working in the state sector. Yes, you can tell. I run a business trading goods between Britain and China. Do you manage a team too? Yes, I don't have the best temper. You seem fine. At least I haven't picked up any aggression or sharp edges. But I need to tell you something. Don't bring up your father's situation right at the start. A stranger has no obligation to accept someone's past. If you can't do that yourself, you can't expect a complete stranger with no family ties to you to do it. What kind of partner would suit somebody like me? I think I'd want either somebody very well-educated or someone from a better-off family. Neither is a good fit for you. Once a woman has run a business, made money, and managed a team, her days are full of sales per customer, profit margins, repeat purchases, conversion rates, strategy, and staffing. She's very unlikely to choose someone who is highly educated. Then someone with a wealthier family, with a good personality, who is more laid-back? A wealthy man who's nice and laid-back won't choose you. A clueless rich kid? A clueless rich kid won't choose you either. He wants someone easy to influence. He wants a stable home with a wife and children, someone ready to have a family. You're expecting too much. Then marriage has no point for me. I get nothing out of it. I never said you have to get married. Compete in the business world, then make money. That sounds exhausting. I fully support women being independent and not relying on men. But you can't adopt that competitive, Traditionally, male outlook only halfway. You say there are no good men, so you'll earn your own money because men can't be trusted, fine. But then you still wanna talk about bride prices, buying a home, adding your name to the deed, and birthday gifts. If you choose independence, rely on yourself. Take the path of Dong Mingzhu, the business leader, or Mi Rui, the stern martial arts master, or Wu Zetian, the empress, that's fine. Or follow Elva Xiao's example and replace your boyfriend when he turns 25. Then what kind of man could I find if I'm dating with marriage in mind? You still can't let go of wanting a shortcut. A shortcut is exactly why I'd get married. If it doesn't give me one, I don't think I'll marry before 25. Marriage is about finding a teammate to share life with, someone to face hardship with. Women who are younger, prettier, wealthier, and better educated than you all want a shortcut too. You're not first in line. You're dreaming. You're dreaming. This young woman has an overseas education and has already started a business. Yet she still sees marriage as a shortcut to a better financial position. Marriage becomes a marketplace, with men and women treated like products on a shelf. The traditional focus on family status and marriage has not disappeared. It has been repackaged in terms of property, income, education, looks, and age. Young, attractive women want wealthy husbands. Wealthy men want young, attractive wives. Ordinary people keep competing within this hierarchy of money and status. Popular Chinese online phrases such as marrying up, networking upward, and landing a big payout reflect the same thinking. Landing a big payout usually means a young woman forms an intimate relationship with a wealthy man and eventually gains money, property, luxury goods, or other material benefits. Some bloggers teach young women how to approach wealthy men, gain their trust, and ask for gifts. They even teach them to measure a relationship's success by how much money the man spends. In this way of thinking, feelings are a means to an end. Money is the goal. But pursuing that can come at a cost that not everyone can bear. One female vlogger posted a video with a strong warning about this idea. Yeah. The internet is full of advice about landing a big payout. Those vloggers teaching you how to do it wouldn't necessarily dare to try it themselves. They'll tell you how rich and generous a man is, but they won't tell you what happens to the women who actually get that money. These so-called big payouts involve affairs with wealthy, middle-aged, or older men. Many of them are married. This is very dangerous. You may get no reward at all, just pain or serious consequences you never expected. You women in your early 20s really don't understand these wealthy men, especially the middle-aged and older ones. If one of them decides you're a problem, he might work with his wife to have you killed. There are many cases of this in real life. The rich man is real. The promised payout isn't. You could end up in jail. Or worse, lose your life. The vlogger also said, There was a neighborhood party committee secretary in Beijing named Luo Xiaojie. He had a long-running affair with a woman surnamed Xiong. He wanted to end it, but she kept pursuing him and showing up at his home to cause a scene. Luo then ordered someone to kill her in a rental apartment. Another prominent case involved Liang Hailing, once known as the top hostess at a Beijing nightclub. She was killed at home. Police found that she had assets worth more than 10 million yuan. Her address book also contained contact details for several senior officials from other provinces. The murder, with its links to powerful circles, remained unsolved for years. The Chinese Communist Party's focus on money and power has spread from the top down to every part of Chinese society. People once believed education could change their lives. Later, some believed buying a home would do that. Now, some place their hopes in marrying someone wealthy. One female vlogger even offered this rule for choosing a spouse. 所有的女生记住了啊。 Women, remember this. Marrying someone wealthier or at your own financial level is fine, but never marry someone poorer. There's an old Chinese saying, poverty breeds scheming, while wealth nurtures a conscience. Some people say, my husband had no money when we got together, and now he treats me very well. But don't gamble on those odds. He might become successful and treat you well. He may also never succeed. Think carefully about that saying. Poverty breeds scheming, while wealth nurtures a conscience. When a poor person is pushed to the limit, even behavior that isn't part of their usual character can come out. This view shows a dangerous side of materialism. It does more than celebrate wealth. It uses wealth to judge a person's moral worth. Poverty becomes more than financial hardship. It is treated as a character flaw. Yet many people are struggling despite working hard, no matter how much effort they put in. Many ordinary workers in China face hardship because of the Chinese Communist Party's Long-standing unfair distribution of resources. A young person without property or substantial savings may work more than 10 hours a day and still struggle to build a comfortable life. Judging people as lacking a conscience simply because they're poor turns a social problem into a moral attack on people already at a disadvantage. This discrimination reaches far beyond dating and marriage. It runs through Chinese society, shaping judgments about jobs, education, family background, and social standing.