Understanding Thai dowry system (Sinsod) How much to pay?

[00:00:00]So, hello and welcome to the channel. In today's video, I'm going to talk about uh sinsot or Thailand's dowry system.

[00:00:09]So, there there is a lot of information online about like uh what is sinsot and what is Thailand's dowry system. For those who don't know, in Thailand, when you get married to a Thai lady, you have to give uh a certain amount of money and gold to her parents.

[00:00:30]It's uh like way too common in Thailand and you can say it's like a uh tradition over here.

[00:00:37]So, uh many people who have Thai girlfriends and who want to get married to Thai ladies know about this thing.

[00:00:45]But, there is like uh when you see information online, uh you just find like uh vague kind of information. It's not clear.

[00:00:54]Uh so, yeah, I have been living in Thailand for the past 6 years and I have been to like Thai marriages uh where like Thai locals get married. So, and I have lived in a uh in a Thai village, so I know how things work in villages. I have lived in cities, so I know about cities as well.

[00:01:14]So, yeah, in today's video, I'm going to talk about what is sinsot or the Thai dowry, how much money should uh should a foreigner pay, and some of the cases where foreigners uh don't even have to pay for sinsot.

[00:01:28]So, yeah, let's uh talk about this thing today.

[00:01:32]So, talking about sinsot, first thing is that it's like uh in Thailand when like uh a man wants to get married to a girl, so his parents will go to girl's family, like her house, and they will talk about like they will discuss the marriage, and then they will discuss about sinsot, like how much money do you want? So, this is the money that a man gives to her family as like a thank you. You can say like as as a thank you or appreciation for raising the their daughter.

[00:02:05]And I I I kind of feel it's like a security money.

[00:02:09]Uh for me, I think it's like a security money because if you know about Thailand, there is a man to cheat around a lot.

[00:02:17]>> [laughter] >> So, um I feel it's kind of like a security where a man if a man gives like let's say 200,000 Thai baht, which is like around $6,000.

[00:02:31]Uh so, if he gives this much money, I mean, he's giving some money to this girl. So, he is like I feel he is less likely to just go around and find new girl. I feel it's kind of security money, but yeah. Uh but Thai people don't see it like that. They just see it it it it as an appreciation for raising their daughter as a thank you to the parents.

[00:02:56]And another thing is that in villages, in most even now, in villages, man goes to live with the girl's family. So, uh and girl uh so, for example, I will explain it in simple language. So, in Thailand, uh let's say if a if if if parents have like 10 rai of land, which is around 2.5 acres, so they are going to give six or seven rai to their daughter. And they are going if they have son as well, they are going to give only three rai to their son. So, in Thailand, parents usually give more land compared to their son to the daughters. So, daughters get more uh money or land from their parents.

[00:03:43]Uh that's why daughter kind of gets more value from parents uh when it comes to like financial things.

[00:03:51]So, I can explain this to a few stories.

[00:03:54]So, first the story I'm going to talk talk about is going to be ants my ex ants step brothers. So, when he was getting married to his wife they paid like 200,000 Thai baht to her grandmother as in suit because his girlfriend at the time was already graduated and she was all like she was never married. So, they they they asked like 200,000 Thai baht in sinsod and he gave it to them. So, this was the dowry that he paid. And another example is going to be of one of the family member. So, he was like 18-year-old guy or something like that and he he got into a relationship with another 18-year-old. They were like just they just passed out high school. And this guy was not rich. He just used to repair like bikes in the in the villages in in near our village. So, this family his family was not rich, but girl's family was a little bit richer.

[00:04:58]And so, when they went to her home, his parents went to the girl's home to discuss the marriage.

[00:05:06]The girl's parents told her them like we have land on our daughter's name. Our daughter already has so much name so much land on her own name. So, she deserves good dowry, but they negotiated it to just 50,000 Thai baht which is like only 1,500 Thai baht.

[00:05:28]So, yeah, dowry is not like too much. Many foreigners think like you have to pay 1 million, 2 million, 5 million baht in sinsod and you have to give thong which is gold as well. But many people do just give like uh 200,000, 300,000 depending on the like uh depending on the how rich is girl's family. Like if if somebody is like super rich like then they can give 500,000 Thai baht in dowry. Uh 1 million, 2 million and so on. But if they are from like normal families, 200,000, 300,000 is the acceptable amount and many families don't even take dowry. So, yeah. It depends on families to be honest. And another example I can give over here is of a lady that I know of. So, she was already married three times and she already had like three, four kids. So, when she got married for the fourth time to a Thai man uh her her husband gave like 40,000 or 50,000 Thai baht in dowry. So, yeah.

[00:06:35]Even today people give like 50,000 Thai baht in dowry in in Thailand. So, if somebody says to you online no you you have to give so much in dowry uh it's not like that.

[00:06:48]Uh and there and there are many people who don't even give dowry. Like for example, I have a friend when he got married to a Thai lady 9 years back. He is still with the same lady. So, they they they they have a good relationship as well uh without fighting. Like So, yeah. They have good relationship for a long time now and they have kids also now. So, when he got married, he didn't give any sinsot. But they borrowed money to show on the table. Like what people will usually do is like if they don't want to give sinsot but they want to show people like we are getting sinsot.

[00:07:25]So, they will borrow money from somebody and they will just keep it on the table during the wedding ceremony. So, yeah.

[00:07:34]So, like let's say for example, if I want to get married but I don't want to pay sinsot. So, what But, the girl's family want people in the village to know that that I paid them some money as sinsod.

[00:07:49]So, what they will do is that they will arrange some money like they will borrow some money like let's say 500,000 Thai baht, 1 million or whatever, and they will keep it on the table to show to the people that I have given them money. Yeah, that's what some people do over here. Just to show people, they will keep money on the table, they will keep gold on the table.

[00:08:10]Uh even though the groom is not giving anything.

[00:08:14]It's just to save the face to look good among people.

[00:08:18]So, yeah, this is what some people do.

[00:08:20]And yeah, my close friend, he didn't pay any dowry when he got married. There are many cases like that that I know of.

[00:08:28]Uh and the highest dowry that I know a guy paid, he was from Europe. He paid like I think 3 million baht in dowry.

[00:08:38]Uh he was like less I think he was like around 50-something guy and he married to like 25-something year-old girl. And he paid so much in dowry, but the thing is that you cannot buy loyalty with money and this girl had a local Thai boyfriend as well. Uh I'm not disclosing their identity. Yeah, I'm just telling the reality of how things work over here. So, this guy paid like 3 million baht in dowry, but he still but he was still getting continuously cheated cheated on. So, that's kind of sad. So, yeah, if you in reality, sinsod is part of Thailand.

[00:09:17]It's a it's a tradition over here. Some people give it, some people don't give it. But, if somebody says, "Oh, this is this is like buying a wife." It's not like that. It's just you are giving money to her parents because in most of the cases, let's say you are taking the girl away from the parents. So, you are just giving them some money like as appreciation for spending money spending money on on her education and spending money taking good care of her something like that people think like that over here in Thailand.

[00:09:48]Yeah, but overall it's up to people.

[00:09:52]Many people pay it many people don't pay it it's nothing it's not a negative thing to be honest.

[00:09:57]It's up to people if they want to give it or not and and it's like it's it's up to you if somebody you just want to give her 50,000 baht. I think it's not too much but if I talk about my honest opinion about this thing if you're getting married to a Thai lady I think it's it's not wrong to give a little bit of sinsot to just respect the tradition.

[00:10:21]Like just out of respect a little bit dowry is fine but yeah, if it's too much money. I think it's not right. You can negotiate it. Yeah, there was one more guy who contacted me. He was from Australia. So he he was getting like married to another man from Australia. Now from Thailand for his son. So so this guy's family were were asking like 100,000 Thai baht in dowry and like I think some gold as well.

[00:10:55]So so yeah, it was kind of crazy because he was getting married to a guy and this guy's family was demanding money from him 300,000 Thai baht.

[00:11:05]Anyway, he he he denied it. He negotiated it first to 200,000 Thai baht then he just walked away. He didn't got married.

[00:11:13]So yeah, it's up to you what you want to do. You want to negotiate or what if you are getting married but sinsot is kind of part part of Thailand over here you can say tradition but it's up to people if they want to give sinsot or not.

[00:11:28]If girl's family demanded Uh, can negotiate. It's like nothing like fixed amount or something like that. So, yeah. This was sin sod or Thai dowry. So, I hope I cleared your doubts because many people always have doubts about this thing about sin sod. They listen it from their friends and they are confused about how much dowry they should give.

[00:11:50]Uh, my honest opinion is just like that if you want to give it, you can give it like 100,000 200,000. Uh, and if you don't want to give it, it's fine as well. Uh, yeah. That's it. That's That's the That's the clear picture about uh, sin sod or dowry in Thailand. So, anyway, I hope you will find this video informative. If you find this video informative, give this video a like.

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