[Poll] Would you sell your daughter into marriage?

The setting is a Renaissance-style isekai world where you transmigrated into a middle-class family (spouse and one daughter). You are middle-aged, the primary decision-maker for the family, and you gained the memories of the body you transmigrated into.

Your daughter is 23 years old and unmarried. In fact, she has never expressed interest in dating before, and she says she doesn’t want to get married.

In your society, your daughter is rapidly moving beyond the marriageable age, and women in this society cannot legally take a paid job. Arranged marriages are common in this culture, and unmarried women have very unfortunate fates — once their parents are unable to financially support them, they are only allowed to work as unpaid servants (serfs) in a household willing to take them.

Since you are a middle-aged middle class individual, one day you will die, and there is not enough of an inheritance that you can leave for your daughter to support them entirely.

You have been engaged in marriage talks despite your daughter’s protests.

Currently, you have a candidate that you think is average — at least they are willing to take an older 23 year old like your daughter — which is absolutely better than nothing. In you waited any longer, there absolutely wouldn’t be any marriage offers in this society.

Regardless of what kind of suitor you find, you know that your daughter will resist marriage. You have attempted to explain the situation to her, but she simply says that she understands and doesn’t want to get married to anyone she doesn’t love — and she doesn’t like men or women anyways.

However, one of the candidates is offering a enormous amount of money as a bride price (note: your culture engages in a bride price custom instead of dowry) — which means that 50% of the bride price money would go to the parents (you) and 50% would go to your daughter.

How much money would a suitor have to offer for you to force your daughter to get married?​

1. Would you ever force somebody to marry for a practical reason? What if you were a King/Queen looking at a political marriage for your child?

2. Your thoughts on dowries and bride prices?

3. What kind of features would you look for in suitors? What kind of features would you avoid?

4. Suppose that there is an agency for unmarried women that helps them find a household that will accept them as a servant/maid. Would you adopt a maid? Why or why not?

5. Suppose that the media is always talking about how maids are frequently mistreated. Would you join a political movement to fight for maid rights? What about a movement for women’s rights?

 

In that setting the daughter is rather stupid.

 

i'll kill every male in the world before any of those pigs touch my daughter
lesbians are ok, lesbian harem is prefered (but she must choose it, never forced)
may commit adultery with daughter wife(s)

 

Watching these polls gives me this crazy idea that there are people who have a hobby in making inhuman experiments in field of psychology. (And I really doubt that there are people who would understood this capt. Pronin reference)

 

1. I would. If i am a king looking for a political marriage partner for my child, i would try to let my child choose for him/herself but when the safety of the country might be compromised then i would force the marriage.
2. It must be a pressure for the guy, especially when there is a richer love rival going after the same person.
3. I eould want someone who is loyal and won't treat my child wrong, i wanna avoid the violent type
4. If i can afford one then i would, because it would be tiring for my wife to do all of them on her own.
5. I wouldn't start them but i would participate in the movement if they don't provide any big risk to my and my family's life

 

Well, that escalated quickly, really that got out of hand fast!

 

I am single and I don't know

 

What is she going to do but leech of me if I don't marry her off to someone who cares?

23 was old for a woman of a middle class family. Infant mortality before modern medicine was like 75%. She would be running a real risk of being infertile (divorce reason) and forced to be a starving nun.

20+ was okay for poor or new family as the guy has to have something before he can marry. Usually the minimum would be a trade skill (and tools) which would require 10 years of experience minimum and he would be like 25 if he started out at 12-14.

16-20+ would be more usual for well off family as the man would be showing potential and the girl would start to look more mature and educated.

Without an inheritance, she has to rely on the guy to make money. This is not laughing matter as they would struggle without the guy being rich. So 23 would be super old for a rich family.

 

Umm... If I sell her like a bag of potatoes, I get a lot of money and she gets a nasty fate of some sort... Maybe some horrible torture till the end of her days, or maybe an unhappy but normal marriage, or maybe... unlikely... she grows to like the guy... who knows... I won't!
But the fact that some guy just comes out from nowhere, and is willing to pay a lot for a wife who doesn't want to marry him, is kind of suspicious... That leaves only one option...

I like money after all!

 

1. I would never, that is rape and I might as well rape my own daughter in that case. As a king my subjects would understand, or be pro rape (for my daughter nonetheless) so I would execute them. Survival by rape is no survival at all! Choosing life over liberty whether your own or others means you don't deserve life!

2. I don't have many thoughts as even without them corruption will still exist, but it shouldn't be a deciding factor or rather it shouldn't be your choice.

 

They could get around this issue and make her a "married woman" that can work by-
Option 1: find a guy who can not/will not marry, and make them marry on paper but never actually interact
Option 2: create a fake husband

Otherwise, send her to the place where she would serve as a serf, and if she would rather live like that than marry, bless her, but if not, marry her to the dude

 

Agreed, although I would look for unconventional solutions

 

3. What my daughter likes as well as somebody who would cherish her and never betray her. Money and financial stability are preferred. Also I want to tell them I have died once then reincarnated and that I was suicidal and somewhat neurotic in my first life so I am willing to kill and torture him regardless of backlash if he ever crosses 'the line'.

 

[D]

 

Yes, and we'd both be turned on by it.

 

This doesn’t get around the fact that your daughter has no income.

The point of the marriage is to marry her to someone who has an income.

If there is no income, then she has to go be an unpaid servant/maid (working for room and board).

 

Huh, what happened to the normal OP isekai-er?
Why would he/she end up so weak, that he/she has to acquiesce to new cultural norms?



Unless you're one of these types?

 

I am not too sure if she can even get married without an inheritance.

Marriage wasn't like the stuff you read. It would be the husband throw in half and the wife throw in half for the house or farm. If the husband got good money then the wife would have a dowdry or a saving in case of hard times.

Without a savings then she would be more or less comparable to a servant.

In fact, it would be best to have some hapless guy to rape her and get her pregnant. He would be a bastard bond on his head and have to take care of her and her child.

 

4. I don't think I could afford it especially with my daughter, maybe hire my daughter as a maid to give her experience. Though I suppose I could kill that guy offering a billion dollars if I thought I could get away with it or at least give the money to my daughter if I am caught.
5. Yes and yes.

 

I would not sell her for any amount of USD.
How would USD even be worth anything in that world, when it's a currency from this?