Chapter 5: Bride-price and leftover women

I'm going to talk about two hot topics in this chapter: Bride-price and leftover women in China. To be honest the bride-price has a long history in China, and the nature of it is the advance payment for lifetime sex-service. Since the reform and opening up in China, the bride price becomes more and more high, and lots of bullshit scholars and politicians, standing on the moral high ground, condemned bride-price and viewed it as the bad habits. In my eyes, they are either stupid or pretend to be stupid with some divulged conspiracy. I would like to prefer the former from my deep goodness, but the latter is true. The present situation in China is that in general the girls in the countryside married the boys in the city; the girls in the city and the boys in poor countryside are left, called leftover women and leftover men. The real purpose of bride-price condemnation is to cater to the majority of leftover men who can't pay bride-price, and push leftover women into marriage, because in today's egalitarianism each man takes mating right for granted. As I have analyzed before, the Luddites will make trouble for the government if they don't have a hole to vent their sex desire. All the government done is to maintain the pseudo-equilibrium: it banned Sex-selective abortion because men need enough sex slaves; it condemned material girls because men prefer free prostitutions; it issued price-controls because lots of poor guy can't pay the equilibrium price for the prostitution. 

Bride-price

I agree with Hagel that what is reasonable is real; that which is real is reasonable. Let me explain why bride-price was reasonable in China. I believe that in ancient times, the purpose of reproduction is not only for spreading their genes as simple as an animal, otherwise there is no adoption at all, because apparently adopted son doesn't have his genes. Why does he adopt a boy? Obviously, it's against the rules of nature. It is from kindness with good intention? Definitely not. Man has become a half Orc which are not only controlled by genes as same as animals but begin to have some individual consciousness. By the way, adoption in ancient China was not what you thought. If you want to abandon your child, you must write down with blood: no regrets like throw a stone down mountains, on which condition, your child could be adopted. Otherwise, no one will adopt your child, and it will only die. This is reasonable, because from the perspective of investment that is to protect investors' income. Like I said before under patriarchy without pension systems, father has two investment strategies: one is to invest on boys, and the other is to invest on girls, which reflect father's two considerations: the former is long-term investment for his old age, and there is an old saying in China, “Raising sons as insurance against old age;” the latter is short-term investment for cash, because father can sell girls in marriage market now. Frankly, I admit that Chinese had son preference in ancient times, but the reason is not the way modern people understand it. I dare say that there was no way to kill a baby girl in ancient times because father has two ways: one is to raise the girl up and sell her in marriage market; the other is father had some sunk cost unrecoverable during pregnancy period, since the girl had been born already, so his best strategy is to sell the baby girl to brothel instead of killing her. Anything is better than nothing, right? Obviously, the strategy of selling girl to brothel dominates the strategy of killing her. Fathers were not stupid, so I firmly believe that there was no possibility of killing girls in ancient times. Since the son and daughter are two different investments, why Chinese had son preference so much? The reason is simple: girls can't work out or be an official by examination under patriarchy; her only resource is her sex resource as a sex slave in future. Why, then, should father, as a rational investor, invest her in other way? The best strategy for father is raising the girl up and selling her for money. On the contrary, son can have many possibilities in future. Father can benefit a lot from his son if his son can be an official by the imperial examination, so father was willing to invest money on son's study or survival skills, because he can get paid in extra investment on son. This is the essence why Chinese had son preference. I bet any father would like to invest lots of money on her daughter in advance if he was sure she can be queen in future. That is utilitarianism, instead of sex preference. The real misogyny preference must start from monogamy. I have given you the reason in previous chapter. It is because the change from polygamy to monogamy reduces the quantity demanded of women at every price shifts the demand curve to the left and is called a decrease in demand. Fathers, as a supplier, have to respond by reducing the quantity of women. In order to cut the losses, he must choose to exit the sex-service supply market. On the contrary, because the policy distorts prices and thus the decisions of rational fathers, people start to produce boys only and kill or abort girls. At the same time, the policy changes God's mixed strategy set with non-arbitrage: male is one strategy with high income with high risks; female is the other strategy with low income with low risks; so it is normal that people began to arbitrage. To understand father's decisions, we need to keep an eye on economic profit. 

Let's go back to the problem of bride-price. Bride-price is not unique to humans. First let us have a look at what Dawkins said about in The Selfish Gene: 

…Since she starts by investing more than the male, in the form of her large, food-rich egg, a mother is already at the moment of conception 'committed' to each child more deeply than the father is. She stands to lose more if the child dies than the father does. More to the point, she would have to invest more than the father in the future in order to bring a new substitute child up to the same level of development. If she tried the tactic of leaving the father holding the baby, while she went off with another male, the father might, at relatively small cost to himself, retaliate by abandoning the baby too. Therefore, at least in the early stages of child development, if any abandoning is going to be done, it is likely to be the father who abandons the mother rather than the other way around. Similarly, females can be expected to invest more in children than males, not only at the outset, but throughout development. So, in mammals for example, it is the female who incubates the foetus in her own body, the female who makes the milk to suckle it when it is born, the female who bears the brunt of the load of bringing it up and protecting it. The female sex is exploited, and the fundamental evolutionary basis for the exploitation is the fact that eggs are larger than sperms.

We have looked at some of the things that a female might do if she has been deserted by her mate. But these all have the air of making the best of a bad job. Is there anything a female can do to reduce the extent to which her mate exploits her in the first place? She has a strong card in her hand. She can refuse to copulate. She is in demand, in a seller's market. This is because she brings the dowry of a large, nutritious egg. A male who successfully copulates gains a valuable food reserve for his offspring. The female is potentially in a position to drive a hard bargain before she copulates…. Courtship rituals often include considerable pre-copulation investment by the male. The female may refuse to copulate until the male has built her a nest. Or the male may have to feed her quite substantial amounts of food. This, of course, is very good from the female's point of view, but it also suggests another possible version of the domestic-bliss strategy. Could females force males to invest so heavily in their offspring before they allow copulation that it would no longer pay the males to desert after copulation?...

There are various ways in which females can put this type of strategy into practice. I have already suggested that a female might refuse to copulate with a male who has not already built her a nest, or at least helped her to build a nest. It is indeed the case that in many monogamous birds copulation does not take place until after the nest is built. The effect of this is that at the moment of conception the male has invested a good deal more in the child than just his cheap sperms. 

Notice that pre-copulation investment happened only to birds instead of mammals. Why? I have explained the reasons before, so we can definitely regard “bride-price” as a progress of civilization from barbarous situation. The emergence of bride-price shows respect and transfer of property rights under private ownership. Apparently, the purpose of bride-price paid by man is not only for reproduction, but also for buying a sex slaves. The nature of bride-price is to force men to invest in sex-service in advance. After the advance payment, he can't get any benefit if he chooses to abandon the woman in the middle as long as she is still useful for him. Of course, polygamy under patriarchy, as equilibrium, has to obey certain rules in China. Certain things are not allowed. First thing is bridegroom must pay a certain number of betrothal gifts to father of the bride. In other words, he buys a wife home from her father. Second thing is woman has no right to divorce. In other words, he buys a woman whole sex-service in her life at expense of his bride-price. The sex-service market determines the bride-price. The sex-services offered by each girl seem approximately the same, and the buyers and sellers are so numerous that no single buyer or seller has any influence over the market price. Because buyers and sellers in perfectly competitive markets must accept the price the market determines, they are said to be price takers. So, under patriarchy and polygamy, regardless buyer and seller, each takes the price as given. Here let's assume some arbitrary hypothetical values for the various costs and benefits. Suppose that the pay-off gained by a man in sexual satisfaction in his whole life is 12 units, and the cost of buying a woman is 10 units. The cost is expressed as negative, because it is 'paid out' as bride-price before having a sex with a woman. Therefore, the net profit for a man participating in sex-service trade is 12-10 = 2. In other case, he can't get sexual satisfaction if he chooses not to pay. Therefore, the net profit for a man not participating in sex-service trade is 0-0 = 0. Paying nothing and getting nothing back is a fair and normal thing. The following Figure 5.1 is the two choices men face. Like I said before, the nature of marriage is a contract between two men under patriarchy, concluding two important things: One is rights and obligations of both parties, and the other is the validity period of this contract. Apparently, the details in the contract under patriarchy are very clear that man has to pay in advance and in exchange he can get ownership and usage rights of woman' s whole life. We need to distinguish between two prices: the purchase price and the rental price, and purchase price is marriage and rental price is prostitution. Under patriarchy, woman is just a private good with both value and use value without any emotion or subjective will. I bet no one believe that marital rape is a crime under patriarchy including woman herself. In order to get value father has to give up the use value, conversely in order to get use value groom has to give up the value. As a result, under patriarchy, man prefer to pay bride-price, because no money no sex-service. This trade accords with one of the Principles of Economics: people face trade-offs. You may have heard the old saying, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” It means that to get one thing from others, we usually have to give up another thing you own. Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another.

With the collapse of patriarchy, woman has some parts of “human rights” – divorce. Women replace their fathers as independent sellers. Suppose that the payoff gained by a man in sexual satisfaction in his whole life is 12 units, and the cost of buying a woman is 10 units. Therefore, the net profit for a man participating in sex-service trade is 12-10 = 2. This is the net profit under patriarchy with woman having no right to divorce, but what happens if woman has right to divorce? Here let's assume the value of woman providing sex-service in her whole life is 8 units, and the bride-price is not recoverable as long as married. Woman has two options now if a man chooses to pay bride-price as same as under patriarchy. One option is to marry him and never divorce in her life. In this case, net profit man gets is 12-10 = 2 units as same as that under patriarchy, and net profit woman gets is 10-8 = 2 units. The other option for woman is marrying him to get bride-price, and divorce him immediately. Because time is very short, we can ignore woman's sexual loss. In this case, man gets very little sex-services roughly regarded as 0, but at the expense of 10 units. Therefore, the net profit he gets is 0-10 = -10 units. Conversely woman pays very little in sex-services roughly regarded as 0, but get bride-price of 10 units. Therefore, the net profit woman gets is 10-0 = 10. In the case of man paying bride-price, woman must choose divorce as soon as possible if she is rational, because 10 is bigger than 2, and the strategy of divorce strictly dominates the strategy of no-divorce. You can find another interesting thing in China: man always asks for refund of bride price when woman chooses divorce, actually we can view this strategy of divorce as collusion or price gouging between daughter and father against the groom. What about groom refusing to pay bride-price? Woman also has two options. One option is to marry him and never divorce in her life. In this case, the payoff gained by a man in sexual satisfaction in his whole life is 12 units, but he didn't pay any bride-price. Therefore, the net profit he gets is 12-0 = 12 units. Conversely the payoff gained by woman is 0, but the cost she pays is 8 units. Therefore, the net profit woman gets is 0-8 = -8 units. The other option for woman is to reject to provide free sex-services. Both of them get 0 units any pay 0 units at same time. No money no sex-service as same as that under patriarchy. In the case of man paying no bride-price, woman must reject to marry if she is rational, because 0 is bigger than -8, and strategy of no-marriage strictly dominates strategy of marriage. The following Figure 5.2 is a tree I draw to represent the game between sexes under the condition that woman has the right to divorce and no premarital sex. Obviously, no matter what kind of choice he makes, paying bride-price in advance or not, woman must respond by choosing separation now or then. Dashed magenta boxes are two strictly dominant strategies by woman. Now how does man choose? It is simple to answer: using backward induction. When a man is making a decision whether to do something or not, he needs to look at the sub-game first, and check what would happen if he did pay bride-price, and then solve out the new Nash equilibrium in that sub-game. Next, he rolls back the value of that sub-game, back into the initial decision node which is his best decision he has to choose. He must compare -10 with 0, and apparently strategy of paying bride-price is eliminated by man, because -10 is dominated by 0. Unlike the first situation under patriarchy, the man's choice has changed, just because woman has the right to divorce. Now the nature of marriage becomes unclear, and the key problem is the validity period of this contract is uncertain, and secondary problem is woman also has the right to reject man's sex requirement. These are two reasons why lots of men in China are willing not to pay bride-price now. Please keep in mind in this tree: (0,0). Zero may not seem much, but it is better than negative. I think (0,0) is an eternal stable strategy from a conservative point of view, because it means everyone exits the trade with paying nothing and get nothing back. Rationality must lead to suboptimal result, and there is an old saying: Penny wise, pound foolish. I think there are two equilibriums left between sexes in the end after lies fall back: one is (0,0), and the other is prostitution. There's no such thing called free sex-service in the world. Money is used to buy 2 things: one is the goods, and the other is service. This is the eternal truth. We can call this tree sub-game 1.

Based on above Figure 5.2, we can conclude that marriage is doomed to extinction, because rational choices can lead to bad outcomes (0, 0), but why so far marriage still exists? Like I said before, as the only way to reproduce, P-V model must be maintained till selfish genes find another way for themselves. Apparently, man is the beneficiary of P-V model and he definitely want to be in this model. Conversely, woman is the key factor to prevent maintenance of P-V model. As a result, God chose to brainwash women by introducing imaginary axis: so-called LOVE. The following Figure 5.3 presents how love introduced into this game and then changes woman's payoffs and choices. Ignorant woman believes she gets a love from her marriage, so she changes her option, because you have to change her payoffs if you want to change her choice. We can assume VL is the value of love. Where is the tipping point of VL? In the case of bride-price, woman starts to compare 2+VL with 10, and she would choose marriage without divorce if VL is bigger than 8. Similarly, in the case of no bride-price, woman starts to compare -8+VL with 0, and she would choose marriage without divorce if the VL is bigger than 8. So, in this model, VL equal to 8 is the tipping point. What does it mean for man? It means he can get free sex-service from a woman if he makes her believe she is in love. Now man faces two options: One is that his net profit is 2 units when he chooses to pay the bride-price; the other is that his net profit is 12 units when he rejects to pay the bride-price. Apparently, he must choose the latter, because strategy of no bride-price strictly dominates strategy of bride-price for him. This is a further collapse of patriarchy, and woman starts to have the freedom to choose a marriage. As a result, she is trapped into utopia of love, because she must abuse the freedom before she has the ability to control this privilege. Under patriarchy no one cares about love, and the purpose of paying bride-price for a man is to exchange sex slave, house maid and reproduction machine back. Love is forced to build out after woman has the right to divorce because love is a necessity to maintain marriage. Of course, after love gradually lost the power of persuasiveness, another other lie follows: G-spot, trying to maintain pseudo-equilibrium from real axis. You could find an interesting and common phenomenon that woman, in general, can't bear a marriage with sex but without love, and conversely man, in general, can't bear a marriage with love but without sex. Many women choose divorce when disillusionment of love, of course on the condition that they don't have any child, because lies can only deceive for a moment, but genes fusion is eternal cruel bind. Woman has to bear the loss when they have a child. This tree is called sub-game 2, as a variant form of sub-game 1, because love changes woman's payoffs. Frankly speaking, it is spiritual victory.

Next, I keep talking about how woman continued abuse of freedom. Sensitive topic: Premarital sex. I like listening to the radio, and lots of women complain that boyfriends don't want to get married after cohabitation. Stupid girls, let me tell you why? All previous situations are based on no premarital sex before marriage. Let's see what Dawkins said in the selfish gene: 

Is there anything a female can do to reduce the extent to which her mate exploits her in the first place? She has a strong card in her hand. She can refuse to copulate. She is in demand, in a seller's market. This is because she brings the dowry of a large, nutritious egg. A male who successfully copulates gains a valuable food reserve for his offspring. The female is potentially in a position to drive a hard bargain before she copulates. Once she has copulated she has played her ace—her egg has been committed to the male. It is all very well to talk about driving hard bargains, but we know very well it is not really like that. 

Unfortunately, modern women do not read. With the complete collapse of patriarchy, woman has not only the right to divorce, but also the right to choose a husband by herself. As a result, ignorant woman has the premarital sex with a man, driven by so-called love. Moreover, some women got pregnant in cohabitation period. Let's examine how game will be after premarital sex and pregnancy. The following Figure 5.4 I draw is the game. Let me explain the details. First, woman has three choices. One is to reject premarital sex; and this option must lead to above Figure 5.3, called sub-game 2 that whether a woman chooses to marry him or not depending on the value of love. Another option for woman is to have premarital sex with a man but reject pregnancy, let's assume the girl wants to get married after they lived together for 2 years. I had assumed the value of woman providing sex-service in her whole life is 8 units; for woman's sex recourses, I think we have to use accelerated depreciation method. It is rational assumption because in general you have to pay more money to a young prostitute than old prostitute, so let's assume woman lost 2 units sex resources in 2 years. In other words, because she provided free sex-service for 2 years, actually she lost 2 units opportunity cost, and the 2 units is her sunk costs unrecoverable. Now man still has two options: one is to pay bride-price; the other is to reject to pay. In the case of bride-price, women still have two options to respond. One is to marry him and never divorce in her life. In this scenario, the game is as same as that under patriarchy, and net profit man gets is 12-10 = 2 units, and net profit woman gets is 10-8 = 2 units; the other option is marrying him to get bride-price, and divorce him immediately. Because time is short, we can ignore woman's sexual loss in marriage, but in this case, she has suffered 2 units loss in cohabitation for 2 years, therefore the net profit she gets is 10-2 = 8; and at the same time man got 2 units of sexual satisfaction, but lost 10 units of bride-price, therefore the net profit he gets is 2-10 = -8. Apparently in the case of bride-price, a rational woman must choose to marry him and divorce as soon as possible, because 8 strictly dominate 2. Similarly, in the case of no bride-price, a rational woman must choose separation immediately, because -2 strictly dominate -8. Obviously, no matter what kind of choice he makes, paying bride-price in advance or not, rational woman must respond by choosing separation now or then. Rational man must respond by choosing no bride-price, because for him -8 is strictly dominated by 2. You could find a common phenomenon that men are no longer eager to get into marriage after cohabitation. The best wish of man is cohabitation forever because he can enjoy free sex-service all the time without any pay. In the sexually open West, many men only cohabit without marriage. In a sexually open China now, cohabitation before marriage has become very common, and the main reason for forcing men to marry is that only after marriage can they legally have children. In the West, there is no such threat. The reason is discussed in the Population Division. On the contrary, women are eager to get into marriage after cohabitation. The reason is very simple: her sex recourses is experiencing accelerated depreciation. As a result, the more losses women suffer, the longer they live together; conversely, the more benefits men can get, the longer they live together. Notice here: because of sunk cost, woman will choose to marry him and not divorce as long as VL is bigger than 6, smaller than previous 8. What does that mean tipping point has shrunk to 6 from 8? It means love is worthless during cohabitation. You can find another interesting phenomenon: a man is always servant when he is courting you; a man becomes a master after cohabitation immediately; conversely woman becomes a servant from princess after cohabitation. To be honest, negotiation of sex trade is like a war of attrition for women. Once women enter into the war of attrition, the best strategy is cutting your losses and quit, because anything is better than zero, and zero is better than negative, and -100 is better than -10. Unfortunately, women are more concerned about sunk costs than future costs and benefits based on marking to the market. This devaluation in woman's life is the mini version of that in the evolution of women. The tree in dashed magenta box is called sub-game 3, as a variant form of sub-game 2, because sunk cost changes woman's payoffs. 

Let's talk about a more complex option. A third option for woman is to have premarital sex with a man and get pregnant at cohabitation period. At man's decision node, he still has two options: one is to pay bride-price; the other is to reject to pay. Let's examine them one by one. In the case of bride-price, woman still has two options: one is to marry him and never divorce, and as same as the previous, the net profit man gets is 12-10 = 2 units, and the net profit woman gets is 10-8 = 2 units; the other option is to marry him but choose abortion and divorce him as soon possible. We can assume the girl gets pregnant after they lived together for 2 years, and CA is the cost of abortion for a woman, but unlike love from imaginary, axis CA, as a real cost, represents physical and psychological harm from real axis; for example, maybe abortion would cause woman lifelong infertility especially for nulliparous woman. In this scenario, the net profit man gets is 2-10 = -8 units, and the net profit woman gets is 10-2-CA. According to backward induction, woman is going to compare 2+VL and 8-CA, and if 2+VL＞8-CA, VL+CA＞6, woman must choose to marry him. It means woman has to choose marriage if CA is bigger enough even she can't feel any love. The same logic can be applied to the rape problem in Africa. This situation is also described in half the sky that the man didn't commit a crime if he pays the bride-price to marry the girl after he raped the girl. It is because rape costs too much for unmarried girls, she has to marry the rapist if he can pay the bride-price. Similarly, in the case of bride-price, woman still has two options: one is to marry him and never divorce; in this scenario, the net profit man gets is 12 units and the net profit woman gets is -8+VL; the other option is to choose abortion and separation, therefore in this scenario the net profit man gets is 2 units and the net profit woman gets is -2-CA. According to backward induction, woman is going to compare -8+VL and -2-CA, and if -8+VL＞-2-CA, VL+CA＞6, woman must choose to marry him. It means woman has to choose marriage if CA is bigger enough even she can't feel any love. Using backward induction, in this assumption as long as CA is bigger than 6, woman must choose marriage regardless bride-price or not. So you would find that women are more eager to get married than men when they get pregnant in cohabitation, and now the tipping point of VL can even be negative. Like I said, your love is worthless in my eyes. Now man must compare 12 and 2, and definitely 12 strictly dominate 2, so he prefers no long to pay bride-price after he knows girlfriend got pregnant. You could find a common thing that woman immediately fell into weak bargaining position after cohabitation and pregnancy, and the man always can get a wife for free after her pregnancy during cohabitation period. In other words, the time point when your girlfriend got pregnant is your best opportunity to haggle with your future father-in-law. Moreover, man rejects to marry the girl after her pregnancy, even she no longer asks any bride-price. Do you know why? It is simple to answer: because the next prostitute is going to be free too. Rational men only follow the principle: marking to market. I don't care what I have got from you already, but what else I can get from you in future. The tree in dashed green box is called sub-game 4, as a variant form of sub-game 3, because CA changes woman's payoffs. Above Figure 5.4 tells us another important principle: order matters a lot, or in other words, sunk cost means second mover advantage in battle of sexes instead of first-mover advantage. 

To be honest, all the confusion during marriage is caused by irrational women because the presence of the suckers actually endangered the grudgers because they were responsible for the temporary prosperity of the cheats. The fact that women have the right to master freedom before they have ability to master freedom, must lead to chaotic situation. Without rape, sexual relationship depends on the choice of woman. Woman, as supplier, is the key to the deal; on the contrary, man, as consumer, must hope the goods and services cheaper and cheaper, and the best is he can get free goods and services. Under the guise of love or G-spot orgasm, women become suckers after providing free sex-services. We shouldn't blame the man, because they are just practicing arbitrage and the strategy of cheat is always evolutionary stable strategy (ESS), and the presence of the suckers is only reason for the existence of cheaters. It is best response for man to receive free sex-service like that cheaters always readily accept altruism from suckers, because selfish genes being what they are, it is not surprising that ruthless, exploiting cheats have cashed in. All in all, free and stupid women are the main cause of high divorce rate now because any free products and services would disrupt the normal economic order. Let's review what Dawkins said in The Selfish Gene: 

…A male who waits for a coy female eventually to copulate with him is paying a cost: he is forgoing the chance to copulate with other females, and he is spending a lot of time and energy in courting her. By the time he is finally allowed to copulate with a particular female, he will inevitably be heavily 'committed' to her. There will be little temptation for him to desert her, if he knows that any future female he approaches will also procrastinate in the same manner before she will get down to business.

As I showed in a paper, there is a mistake in Trivers's reasoning here. He thought that prior investment in itself committed an individual to future investment. This is fallacious economics. A business man should never say 'I have already invested so much in the Concorde airliner (for instance) that I cannot afford to scrap it now.' He should always ask instead whether it would pay him in the future, to cut his losses, and abandon the project now, even though he has already invested heavily in it. Similarly, it is no use a female forcing a male to invest heavily in her in the hope that this, on its own, will deter the male from subsequently deserting. This version of the domestic-bliss strategy depends upon one further crucial assumption. This is that a majority of the females can be relied upon to play the same game. If there are loose females in the population, prepared to welcome males who have deserted their wives, then it could pay a male to desert his wife, no matter how much he has already invested in her children.

…So far, faithful males have had a monopoly. But now if a philanderer male arises in the population, he starts to do better than his faithful rivals. In a population where all the females are fast, the pickings for a philanderer male are rich indeed….In a population in which all the females are fast, philanderer genes will spread like wildfire.

Demanding that a prospective mate should build a nest is one effective way for a female to trap him. It might be thought that almost anything that costs the male a great deal would do in theory, even if that cost is not directly paid in the form of benefit to the unborn children. If all females of a population forced males to do some difficult and costly deed, like slaying a dragon or climbing a mountain, before they would consent to copulate with them, they could in theory be reducing the temptation for the males to desert after copulation. Any male tempted to desert his mate and try to spread more of his genes by another female, would be put off by the thought that he would have to kill another dragon.

What does this sentence mean: If all females of a population forced males to do some difficult and costly deed, like slaying a dragon or climbing a mountain, before they would consent to copulate with them, they could in theory be reducing the temptation for the males to desert after copulation. I think it means divorce rate would drop dramatically if there is no free sex-service in the world. The fundamental reason for a man to divorce or separation so easy is the next prostitute is also free, and in general the strategy adopted by a man is looking for a horse while riding on a donkey as same as the strategy in looking a job. The bride-price indeed played a stabilizing role of marriage, because the essence of bride-price is advance payment of lifelong sex-services. For example, a man spent 500 thousand RMB on bride-price, and one day he wants to divorce and change a new wife, and then he should think like this “Forget it, I have to pay another 500 thousand RMB for a new one, but the effect of pussy is the same no matter whose. ” Notice here: I address that bride-price and no free sex-services bound together can reduce the divorce rate, but can't stop prostitution, because based on Edgeworth Box I have illustrated already, prostitution can make both of them better off. Women must admit and face it, because rational people would compare the temptations to cheat today with the rewards and punishments from tomorrow, so far woman or government has no effective punishment for prostitution, so prostitution is profitable deviation for men, and no one can change that. Rational people make decisions by comparing marginal benefits and marginal costs. 

Similarly, here I give you another classic economic crisis example helping you to understand importance of the bride-price in maintaining stability of marriage: subprime mortgage crisis in America. Traditionally banks have certain strict standards of conforming loans if one day I want to get a loan to buy a house from my bank. I have to satisfy the following some properties: I have to pay 20% down payment in advance, and I have a steady job, and I have a good credit rating. We can view these conditions as strictly access threshold, and the significance of the existence of the threshold lies in kicking the unqualified people out of the market and protecting the lenders and passing the most of risks on to qualified borrowers. For a concrete example: I want to spend 1 million on buying a house, my bank never gives away loans for free and asks me to put 20% down payment in a house and check my job and my credit rating. After all check, my bank would say “Yuyu qualified, because she has paid 200 thousand, and she has a steady job and very good credit rating.” Misfortunes never com single. After I bought this house I lost my job and the value of the house drops by 20% over night. I choose default because I don't have the ability to pay the mortgage anymore. My bank must take the house back immediately and auction it off in the market. Eventually bank can get almost all 80 thousand back and suffer little loss because bank keeps this equity cushion. That is why the banks wanted everyone to put 20% down. Because they know even if the value of the house drops by 20%, it will all come from my equity and I would lose all my down payment. How did the subprime crisis happen? The root lies in bank started lowering loan standards. Banks would think we are already giving mortgages to all the people who qualify, and in order to find more people who want mortgages from us, we will just have to lower the standards a little bit. As a result, the standards for getting a loan went lower and lower, and credit just got easier and easier and easier, even people didn't need any down payment. Now buying a house becomes a thing with zero thresholds. Like I said before, the existence of the thresholds aims at kicking the unqualified people out of the market. Zero thresholds allowed more people to bid on houses. Banks could give a loan to someone who is complete deadbeat without any down payment. But as long as housing prices go up, if they lose their job, they can still sell that house and pay back the loan. What happens when housing prices go down? The deadbeat guy must choose to default if the market price of the house goes less than his loan, because default is his best response. Bank has to take the house back and auction it off in the market. As a result, banks take all risks of the house and can only get a part of the money back. Subprime mortgage crisis occurred. I said before that lowering standards leads to brief false prosperity in short-run, but with great risk inevitably lead to chaos in long-run. This is s a universal truth.

The essence of lowing standards is to let unqualified consumers into the market. From short-run view, lowing standards indeed can bring temporary prosperity, but from long-run view, it must lead to chaos and bubble. In my opinion, it is an illusion, and short-sighted behavior. Similar, we can apply this logic to the sex-service market called marriage. Bride-price, as threshold, is necessary as same as down payment in buying house, because the existence of threshold plays the role of maintaining stability. Without a threshold, man will easily default, because rational man must act on mark-to-market. Moreover, without down payment, house prices are facing two possibilities: rising or falling, so buyers would not necessarily default, but because woman's sexual resources must be devalued as time goes by, man must choose divorce if he has another better and free choice. In China, generally the bride-price of middle aged and remarried women is much less than that of young unmarried woman, because your bargaining chip is depending on your continuation values instead of your sunk costs, and every now and then, rational man has to figure out what his purpose is worth, and obviously the sex resources of middle-aged women is not much leftover. There is an old saying in China, the three best wishes of a middle-aged man: one is getting a promotion, another is making a fortune, and the third one is wife is dead. Notice here: This order is very important, because poor guys don't want wife dead. The advantage of the threshold lies in that it can absorb all of deviations which are below the threshold. Any system, without a threshold, would immediately collapse when once suffered any deviation outside. In short, a system with a moderate threshold could be a relatively stable state, but a system without any threshold must be an unstable state. I confess this idea comes from threshold in nerve conduction. A marriage with no bride-pride before having sex is as same as buying house with no down payment, where there are a lot of risks in and default or separation at any time. The relationship between sexes is indeed a relationship of mutual mistrust and mutual exploitation. This is the wisdom of the Chinese, playing the game of down payment a few hundred years earlier than western. By the way, the childbride is also a prepaid system, and the nature of it is bride-price as well. Payment in advance to the girl's father can reduce his life burden. This is the wisdom of the Chinese people. The system of bride-price is the most powerful umbrella for rural women, otherwise in the current situation, forcing the cancellation of bride-price would make women more worthless, and no one would produce girls.

Leftover women

As we all know, China has quickly entered the “single country” with many leftover women and more leftover men. Leftover men tend to attribute the reason why they can't get married to the faulty of Chinese government; they blame government's supervision so inadequate that many baby girls got abortion after Sex Identification through B-scan. I have to admit that the sex ratio, according to state media, is 105:100 in China at the end of 2016, which means there are totally 34 million men leftover even under the condition that there is no woman leftover and each woman was forced into a marriage. You could find a common phenomenon that there is a marriage squeeze happening in China that city's men marry country's women, and leftover women are basically in the city particularly in the super metropolis, and leftover men are basically in countryside particularly in impoverished rural areas, so you should realize that the actual population of leftover men is far greater than 34 million because don't count on leftover women to marry leftover men. I conservatively estimate there are at least 100 million leftover men in China. Unfortunately, so far neither the government nor the experts are aware of where the real problem lies in. Some scholars also point out that leftover women are not a problem, and leftover men are a problem. In order to maintain social stability, Chinese government has to pander to the sex desires of so many leftover men. In other words, government is forced to intervene directly in sex-service market on its own interests because it was kidnapped by bottom men through “cruel bind”. As a result, except stabilization the aggregate supply of sex service by prohibition of sex-selection abortion, government often intervenes in the market in two ways: one is price controls; the other is taxes. Here we examine these two policies one by one using only the tools of supply and demand. As you will see, the analysis yields some surprising insights. Policies often have effects that their architects did not intend or anticipate. 

Like I said before, the gender imbalance in China is not the main reason for the problem of leftover woman and leftover men. The following Figure 5.5 would show you why leftover women arise and how price ceiling affect market outcomes. We also start from an initial equilibrium. Under patriarchy and polygamy, supply curve (S) and demand curve (D₁) intersect at point A. We can roughly believe that there is no women leftover at this scenario, because rich men always get as many wives as possible, and leftover women can be sold in brothel. In short, all women must enter P-V model and there is no free sex-services in the market because this is only way to make a living. One day the change from polygamy to monogamy shifts the demand curve to the left, and intersect supply curve at point B, and we can assume that there is no gender preference, so Q_N is women's population also equivalent to men's population. Now with economic independence, women become gradually rational and rational and begin to examine the costs and benefits of marriage. Based on one of ten principles of Economics “People respond to incentives”, that more and more women refuse to enter marriage, is a response to incentives. It can be said that in the patriarchal system, rational fathers respond to monogamy by killing baby girls and exiting supply market, and after the collapse of patriarchy, rational girls should also respond to monogamy by exiting supply market. So, in new equilibrium point B, the bride-price falls from P₁ to P₂, and the equilibrium quantity falls to Q₂ to Q₁, there are women of (Q_N-Q₂) leftover in society. Because of the sex ratio of 1:1, there are also men of (Q_N-Q₂) leftover in total. This is the key to problem of leftover men. As long as woman, as supplier, gets more and more rational, you can't solute the problem of leftover men, because no woman wants to offer sex-service for free. For extreme example: there is only one men leftover in China, who is beggar, do you think there is a woman willing to provide free sex-service for him? Don't you think he can occupy all women? Stress that again: the essence of economy market is to kick unqualified buyers and unqualified sellers out of the market, so let me redefine the leftover woman and leftover men: leftover women is unqualified sellers, whose cost of marriage is bigger than equilibrium price; leftover men is unqualified buyers, whose willingness to pay is smaller than equilibrium price. They are both rational people, because unqualified sellers in sex-service market lose nothing, and they left without bride-price and without providing sex-service; similarly, unqualified buyers in sex-service market lose nothing, because they left without sex-service and without paying bride-price. I was mercilessly kicked out of the sex-service, because I made a rational choice. Eventually at next equilibrium those men who value the sex-service more than the bride-price choose to buy sex; men who value it less than the price does not. Similarly, those women whose costs are less than the price choose to sell sex; women whose costs are greater than the price do not. In short, the phenomenon of leftover men and leftover women is a very normal and inevitable outcome as the result of economy market. No one can change that.

The key question is lots of men in China can't afford the P_2­, but they still wanted to enjoy sex-service and kidnapped the government, because Chinese people don't understand what a shortage is, and the definition of shortage is I can't buy a good or service at the going price, but Chinese think that I can't afford the going price means shortage. They blame the government; the government has to compromise to cater to them. As same as rent-control laws and Minimum-wage laws, bride-price-control is enacted when policymakers believe that the market price of sex-service, also named marriage, is unfair to buyers. The essence of free market economy is to kick unqualified buyers and unqualified sellers out of the market, and apparently not everyone may be happy with the outcome of this free-market process, because there are always some people wiped out who can't afford the equilibrium price. Because buyers of any good always want a lower price while sellers want a higher price, the interests of the two groups conflict. If the government puts different weight assignment on buyers or sellers, it would choose different strategy: price ceiling or price floor. Obviously, government prefers men, because women are stupid so far. You can't get what you want, till you know what you want. So far women don't know what they what, so it is normal women are exploited. Assume that in monogamy sexual services reach equilibrium Point B. When the government, moved by the complaints and campaign contributions of bottom men, imposes a price ceiling on the marriage market, and the market price equals the price ceiling. At this price, the quantity of women demanded exceeds the quantity supplied, because some women quit sex-service market. There is a shortage of women: some men who want to buy a wife at the going price are unable to do so. The above Figure 5.5 would show you how price ceiling affect market outcomes. Recent news reports that in China some local governments have imposed a price ceiling of 60 thousand RMB. We assume the dark cyan line represents price ceiling, which is below P₂, and intersect demand curve2 at point C and supply curve at point D. apparently at this price, the quantity of demanded exceeds the quantity supplied. There is a shortage of women: (Q₃-Q₄) who wants to buy a wife at the going price is unable to do so. In the short run, the primary effect in the short run is to reduce bride-price. The long-run story is very different because the fathers respond bride-price control by abortion baby girls as time passes. Once the government has imposed a price ceiling of zero, every rational woman would exit the market in short-run, but people immediately begin to arbitrage by producing boys only. Prohibition of prostitution is to set a price ceiling of zero. To be honest, this price ceiling does not work and must lead to rent seeking, because bride-price would become a kind of underground economy. Except for bride-price itself, men have to bribe others, such as woman's relatives, and eventually the total price of a marriage (including the bribe and rent seeking) must be closer to the equilibrium price. What is the government, as a so called “benevolent social planner”, going to do next? When a shortage of sex service develops because of this price ceiling, some means will naturally develop by government to push women into marriage. Rationing system maybe, but I don't think so, not because rationing violates human rights, but they can find another way to force leftover women into P-V model. Taxes I think because taxes are such an important policy instrument in many ways. 

From the above Figure 5.5, we know that the bride-price-ceiling is not good at forcing women into a marriage, and government must come up with another trap. If the government wanted to encourage people to get into a marriage, it usually uses subsidy. There are two ways to achieve this goal: one is to subsidize people who get into a marriage; the other is to punish people who keep single after adult by taxes. Frankly speaking, the two ways are essentially the same, but I bet governments prefer the latter to former, and the reason is very simple: where is the money from? Tax on being singles is a variant form of “Poll tax”. In ancient China, everyone had to pay a poll tax after born in order to control population growth. We can view “Single tax” as a kind of “Poll tax” which you must pay after born till you get into a marriage. A subsidy, as same as “Single tax”, is the opposite of a general tax. General tax is a tax on trade, but “Single tax” is a tax on non-trade with the only purpose to force people into marriage. Everything is the result of relative choice, so there is no essential differences between the two expect the problem of justice, but I don't think the government cares about justice too much, and it even doesn't know what the justice is. Who knows? I don't know either. What I am sure is government will do everything possible or impossible to force women into marriage. The reason is simple: it needs woman to be placebo, because lots of men without sex satisfaction would harm the stability of society. The following Figure 5.6 illustrates how subsidy or “Single tax” affects people's decision. 

Like most taxes, subsidy also distorts incentives and pushes the allocation of scarce resources away from the optimal quantity Q₂. As we saw in above Figure 5.6, both buyers and sellers are better off when marriage is subsidized: A subsidy raises the price sellers receive and lowers the price buyers pay. In other words, a subsidy on a good or service causes the size of the market to expand. Let's assume after the subsidy, the number of women in marriage changes to Q₅ from Q₂ as same as the number of men because of monogamy. The government's total subsidy is represented by a rectangle, and the height of this rectangle is S, and the width of the rectangle is the quantity Q₅. Therefore, the rectangle's area, which equals the total subsidy government, has to pay, is S×Q₅ = C+D+E+F+G. After calculation, the cost of subsidy expended by the government exceeds the total revenue received by buyers and sellers. The area G measures the size of the deadweight loss. With subsidy, the marginal buyers and sellers enter the marriage market. Because subsidy distorts people's incentives, they cause markets to allocate resources inefficiently. 

From above Figure 5.6, we are sure that subsidy or single tax would lead to deadweight loss, but why lots of governments still choose to intervene in the marriage market? Cruel bind. The governments pursue their own self-interests under the guise of pursuing bullshit equality, as same as polygamy replaced by monogamy. We have known how markets allocate scarce resources with the forces of supply and demand, and the equilibrium of supply and demand is typically an efficient allocation of resources. To use Adam Smith's famous metaphor, the “invisible hand” of the marketplace leads self-interested buyers and sellers in a market to maximize the total benefit that society derives from that market. But the efficient allocation of resources doesn't conform to rulers' interests, in other words, maximization of total benefit of society doesn't mean maximization of rulers. As a result, government must intervene in the market. Apparently, the fact that a large number of men do not get sexual satisfaction would threaten social stability. In order to maintain stability, incompetent governments choose to change the equilibrium by laws, instead of strengthening legalization or security administration. Subsidy or Single tax, which government prefers? The government must look at the pros and cons of these two. The Following figure 5.7 illustrates the results of the two strategies. Let's examine the two strategies one by one, and finally you will know there is no solution to this problem of leftover women and men all over the world. During panel (a), in the absence of government intervention, the price adjusts to balance the supply and demand for marriage. The quantity supplied and demanded in the market equilibrium, shown as Q_market in panel (a), is efficient in the sense that it maximizes the sum of supplier and demander surplus. But rulers, as so called “benevolent social planners”, believed Q_market is too small, and more people into marriage can help to stabilize society. In other words, beyond men's private benefits, however, marriage also yields positive externalities. So, the social value is greater than the private value, the social value curve lies above the demand curve, and the optimal quantity government thought is found where the social-value curve and the supply curve intersect. To move the market equilibrium closer to the social optimum, a positive externality requires a subsidy, so external benefit is equal to subsidy in panel (a). So far, we know subsidy is necessary, but does it work? We have learned some general lessons from economy: (1) Taxes levied on sellers and taxes levied on buyers are equivalent, and in the new equilibrium, buyers and sellers share the burden of the tax, and the only difference between taxes on sellers and taxes on buyers is who sends the money to the government; (2) How the burden of a tax is divided: A tax burden falls more heavily on the side of the market that is less elastic. We can apply these logics to subsidy incidence. Like I said before, because of marriage squeeze, leftover women are basically highly educated with high salary, in other words they have a high opportunity cost; conversely leftover men are basically less educated with low salary. Therefore, in marriage market, leftover women are not very responsive to changes in the price (so the supply curve is steeper), whereas leftover men are very responsive (so the demand curve is flatter). In other words, price elasticity of supply is almost completely inelastic, and conversely price elasticity of demand is almost completely elastic. In panel (a), we can see that when a subsidy is delivered, the price paid by men does not fall much, but the price received by women rises substantially. Thus, women get most of the benefit of the subsidy, because a subsidy incidence falls more heavily on the side of the market that is less elastic. Eventually government can't get what they want, because they spend lots of subsidy but squeeze out a little increment: Q_optimum is a little bigger than Q_market. In summary, marriage subsidy is not a good way, and the key problem is also where the money comes from. Maybe the idea of “Single tax” is much better than subsidy, even though it is the most shameless, but I think governments don't even know what the impudicity is, because God don't know either. Next, we are going to examine the strategy of “Single Tax”. 

During panel (b), we also start from equilibrium that in the absence of government intervention, the price adjusts to balance the supply and demand for marriage. One day the government begins to levy “Single Tax”, and this trick indeed can force someone into marriage. We can think about “Single Tax” conversely. Some marginal suppliers get into marriage in order to avoid tax, but the increment is very small (Q_W-Q_E) because supply curve is steeper; conversely some marginal demanders get into marriage for the same reason, but he increment is very big (Q_M-Q_E) because demand curve is flatter. In other words, quantity squeezed by Single tax is much smaller on suppliers than demanders, because price elasticity of supply is almost completely inelastic while price elasticity of demand is almost completely elastic. Don't forget we are monogamy, it means there are (Q_M-Q_W) men leftover who can't get into marriage but have to suffer the Single Tax. Of course, there are same amount of women leftover. Actually, I'm not worried about the Chinese government imposes a single tax. Because it dares not. Here I give you my reason. What kind of men who can't get a wife in China? The answer is poor guys. What if government imposes a Single Tax? I have no way out but let it squeeze my surplus, but I have lots of surplus to squeeze, and conversely Single Tax means adding insult to injury for those bottom men, and the poor becomes poorer. This is contrary to the government's original intention. However, the government can also issue more targeted policies that single people with monthly income less than 5000 yuan are exempt from single tax. This might be the most insidious conspiracy because the only target group of tax revenue is unmarried leftover women. It is also difficult to operate. Is it necessary to tax divorced women? Unqualified sellers can avoid tax by divorcing immediately after marriage. All in all, everything comes at a price, and the best way for government to solve the problem of sex-service is to cheat. Love is the best way: brainwashing all women by love. Of course, cheating is always the first choice in any case, because it costs nothing in real axis. Irrational and emotional woman is men's favorite, because everyone likes free things and services. Stupid women, you need to be a very down-to-earth and rational person in marriage trade, but unfortunately most of women are up-to-sky instead of down-to-earth. When the truth is revealed, how many women would provide vaginal for free? We can conclude that there is no solution to the problem of leftover women and men all over the world, and the phenomenon of leftover women is the inevitable outcome after women get economic independence and rationality back. I can teach government a trick to solve the problem of leftover men, but I am afraid you dare not do that. Go back to previous equilibrium: Don't let women go to school or work outside, and force them into a marriage for survival, because any equilibrium is only related to interests, and nothing to do with emotion. Women are still in Pseudo-Equilibrium, and the greatest tragedy is fulfilling the obligations of prostitutes, but losing the income of prostitutes. Let's review what Dawkins said in The Selfish Gene:  

…Early in the season they fight over territories, but after a while the losers seem to accept that they have failed, and do not fight any more. They become outcasts who never get territories, and by the end of the season they have mostly starved to death. Only territory owners breed. That non-territory owners are physically capable of breeding is shown by the fact that if a territory owner is shot his place is promptly filled by one of the former outcasts, who then breeds….On the face of it, this seems an awkward example for the selfish gene theory to explain. Why don't the outcasts try, try, and try again to oust a territory holder, until they drop from exhaustion? They would seem to have nothing to lose. But wait, perhaps they do have something to lose. We have already seen that if a territory-holder should happen to die, an outcast has a chance of taking his place, and therefore of breeding. If the odds of an outcast's succeeding to a territory in this way are greater than the odds of his gaining one by fighting, then it may pay him, as a selfish individual, to wait in the hope that somebody will die, rather than squander what little energy he has in futile fighting. For Wynne-Edwards, the role of the outcasts in the welfare of the group is to wait in the wings as understudies, ready to step into the shoes of any territory holder who dies on the main stage of group reproduction. We can now see that this may also be their best strategy purely as selfish individuals. As we saw in Chapter 4, we can regard animals as gamblers. The best strategy for a gambler may sometimes be a wait-and-hope strategy, rather than a bull-at-a-gate strategy…. Similarly, the many other examples where animals appear to 'accept' non-reproductive status passively can be explained quite easily by the selfish gene theory. The general form of the explanation is always the same: the individual's best bet is to restrain himself for the moment, in the hope of better chances in the future. A seal who leaves the harem-holders unmolested is not doing it for the good of the group. He is biding his time, waiting for a more propitious moment. Even if the moment never comes and he ends up without descendants, the gamble might have paid off, though, with hindsight we can see that for him it did not. 

Everything should have a threshold. Zero-threshold must inevitably lead to chaos. What is the essence of market economy? It is the non-random differential trade of people. Sexual satisfaction is not free, except you jerk your self. In the market economy, the equilibrium price is the threshold in order to kick the unqualified consumers and unqualified producers out of the market. There no such thing as a just price. The price that equilibrium finds is the best price.  Moral preaching or love brainwashing, both from imaginary axis, only works in the short-run, but any game must eventually return to real equilibrium state which is concerned with real interests' balance in real axis from the long-run view. Might the sex-services have been provided by volunteers in long-run view? Let the market works, suppliers come. The original intention of monogamy or bride-price control is to make each poor man have free sexual life, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions is a proverb or aphorism. Certainly, some people do this out of stupid kindness in short-run. But we can't count on stupid kindness forever. As Adam Smith wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Force prices down, and you keep suppliers out. Price controls affect market outcomes, and squeeze lots of women out of the sex-service market. Finally, how should government solve the problem of poor guy's sex satisfaction? I think there are two ways: One is prostitution. Like house, we have two ways to deal with sex problem: the purchase and the rental. Apparently poor guy can choose the rental price instead of the purchase price. The other is substitution. I bet inflatable doll is a good choice in future. Leftover bottom men have to accept the fact that they have no mating right.