Q. Current trend for hantaran in Singapore

mine was 4k. initially that was what i discussed with my parents as i told them, "of which he can afford". i mean seriously, if i want to ask for 10k and above (faints) like nowadays the dowry is, can it give me a security that it'll be an everlasting, blissful, happy marriage till death do us part??? hmmm...

so to say that Mahr is a must and dowry is a customary. customary for what? even as this dowry was discussed among my parents, they were like (especially my mum), "what makes you think we're putting the dowry so high? who do you think you are? a grad? a soleha? you can't even stay in the kitchen for 5mins to see me clean the fish or let the 'tudung' (headscarf) sits for a day on your head while attending religious class and bla bla bla!" all that she muttered with utter disappointment hokay.

so, to make the story short. i think i came to terms with the dowry decided by my parents (that should justify with what i qualify, right? lol!) and then again where do this dowry goes to? to the expenses of the wedding of course! who says is to the brides' parents??? okay, maybe a little half of it but does that amount justify the labour, patience, care, love, time, nurture, responsibility and the list goes on to that of a parent who have done the above to brought up the bride. NO!

i guess it's time to ponder.... hard!

Asker's comment:

WOW! insightful!.

So how much did you end up with, i mean the hantaran?

I had something similar with my parents. We had a huge fight because of the 'hantaran' issue. I didn't want it at first. but my parents insist i have it coz the 'hantaran' goes to the wedding expenses. Also my parents said that i have to do it to 'put a price' on the cost of wedding or else the groom may be tricky in paying for the wedding expenses & most importantly I later discovered that it's to show everyone. That's just disgraceful on my part. eww. So what if people talk, people talk anyway about everything.

I agreed with my parents on having the hantaran just to please them. Although i didn't agree on going for the 10K + hantaran. We negotiated and i agreed for 6K ( or may parents wouldn't want to have anything to do with my wedding, geess!). I have to draw a line when it come to that extreme.

But with regards with repaying our parents efforts. I think parent's shouldn't use the wedding as a form of us kids to show them gratitude. That's just pure blackmail. In turn when we are parents i hope we wouldn't do the same to our kids. It's stressful enough to get married, being pressured by parents to do all this kinda stuff to 'please' them will only cause more stress on your kids. so please parents if you really care about us, don't do emotional blackmail stuff.

ps: if you want money for the bride, make sure to go for a higher price Mahar instead of the hantaran. :P And please, don;t be a fool to spend lavishly for your wedding! it's a real rip-off.Forget abt the once in a life time crap. Be smart. If you want something nice, do it later down in your marriage to celebrate your 5th wedding anniversary or something. Be debt free people! Start off your marriage in peace ;)

I LOVE this!!! thought i was the only one who felt this way. THUMBS UP!! Really hate the fact that it's to 'show' people. Urgh! Say NO to hantaran.

Basically hantaran is to show the girl's parents that he is ready to take up the commitment, the amount he has in his savings. The money is then normally returned to the guy to be used for the new house/bed, etc. The guy may offer to pay/settle the wedding expenses but at this day & age, girl's parents would like a big wedding hence expenses are normally covered by the girl's parents themselves or whichever that is settled as agreed during the masuk meminang.