Sin Sot

One of the most apparent clashes of Thai vs. Western culture seems to occur over the issue of Sin Sot (or dowry.) Paying a Sin Sot to your wife’s family upon marriage can be seen by some Westerners as a distasteful kind of bartering and some find it a suspicious custom that only shows greediness.

Paying Sin Sot is not an Ancient Thai tradition but is a relatively newly imported idea from China, but it is clearly now an ingrained part of Thai culture. A village wedding without the ceremony related to the Sin Sot payment would seem quite amputated and most villagers attending the wedding would be puzzled by such a performance.

It is certain that refusing to pay Sin Sot outright will greatly embarrass your Thai partner. It is both a rejection of Thai customs and possibly giving wedding guests the impression that this wedding is not really based on love as the groom is obviously so stingy.

What significance do Thais attribute to the payment of Sin Sot? There seems to be 3 clear ideas behind this Thai custom that explain why it is still valued.

Firstly, it shows the bride's parents that their son-in-law has enough money to take care of his wife and he is not taking their daughter to live rough. By making the groom pay Sin Sot the parents have shown a concern for the welfare of their daughter. So after this financial security has been proven it can be the case that the Sin Sot is paid back to the couple so they can start their life together.

Secondly, it proves that the groom is very serious about marrying since he has found the money to put in as the dowry. The dowry makes the matter of marriage a serious event for many couples and not something to be taken lightly - no shot gun Las Vegas weddings.

Thirdly, there is also the question of a rich Farang marrying someone of a much less fortunate background. In such situations the payment of Sin Sot may be regarded as an act of favour - a show of generosity towards his new family to make their life easier.

Western culture can be at odds with these Thai customs and beliefs. In the West the concept of love is not to be degraded or tarnished by any kind of materialistic concerns. Love is a purely emotional and ideal state totally separate from something as base as money.

In Thailand many ceremonies, customs, manners and attitudes are bound up with an outward show of status and wealth. This is not synonymous with being superficial and shallow – you are not marrying a footballer’s wife here!

Sin Sot is not a conspiracy to squeeze money out of Farangs. It is a traditional Thai custom that is bound up with the fact that Thailand is a hierarchical society. By paying the Sin Sot you are showing that you fit into that structure. It is a token of your generosity by which all people are judged in Thai society – the more the show of generosity the greater the show of respect and gratitude. So if your girlfriend asks for an amount that seems very excessive it may not necessarily be something that signifies greed or bad intentions – it could just be that she wants you to appear as a “great man” to her village, as someone who has obtained good “face” and you as a couple will consequently gain status. It may just be that your Thai partner values the respect and status that the ceremony of Sin Sot provides – it is a major thing, a crucial point in her life.

When we had our village wedding I was short of money and it was agreed that I just pay a symbolic amount of Sin Sot – 50,000 Thai baht (changed to 49,999 Thai Baht by my mother-in-law for good luck). This money would later be returned to me once the wedding was over. It was only my wife, her sisters and her mother who were in on this scheme.

Our wedding was broadcast to the whole village via loudspeakers and a crucial point of the ceremony was when the elders counted the money and subsequently broadcast the amount of Sin Sot paid to the wider world (see pictures). My wife and her mother had “cheated” as it was announced that I had paid 70,000 THB (they included the money I had sent to my wife the previous 3 months), but it was clear from the body language and general attitude that the villagers judged us as a couple based on the amount of Sin Sot paid. There were nodding heads and smiley faces when the amount was announced and I felt as if the villagers had accepted me a bit more than before. To them, I had shown generosity, and I had also shown that I loved my wife.

Some Westerners show a certain cultural chauvinism in refusing to pay the Sin Sot. They claim that it is a Thai custom that Farangs are not obliged to pay – especially not if your wife is from a poor family or has had previous relationships. Some Farangs who have this attitude just seem to want to get their Thai brides and take them back to their home countries and then forget about Thailand. It seems to be a rejection of Thai culture and an assertion of the “superiority” of our values.

It is also a strange Capitalist way of thinking where transactions of money are solely judged on the terms of a market economy. In essence, if you refuse to pay Sin Sot because your wife has had previous relationships or is from a poor background then you are sort of looking upon her as a commodity – a commodity that has lower value than others currently in the marketplace. If you are feeling a sense of self-satisfaction, as you venture home on your transcontinental flight, because you seem to have made a good deal by not “paying” anything for your wife then you are again interpreting the paying of Sin Sot as a capitalist bargain – a deal where you have “won out”. Although many Thais also hold to the notion that less Sin Sot should be paid if the bride has been in a previous marriage etc. they will still pay some Sin Sot as part of a marriage ceremony anything else would be a break with all tradition. If Thais go through a ceremony the Sin Sot cannot be avoided.

The price of the successful "deal", the Farang may think he can make, is not to be judged in terms of money. By paying the Sin Sot you would have gained in status and people in her village would speak well of you. You would have shown an understanding and respect towards her culture that would have helped in gaining their goodwill for a very long time. The relative cost of trying to accommodate your wife’s culture seems small when looked upon in this sense. Maybe you will want to visit her family regularly and even build a house in her village – the villagers will probably smile and treat you courteously at all times, but you will still be remembered for your disregard for their culture.

A village wedding without paying Sin Sot is hard to pull off without losing face.    

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Some comments on this article:

"Nice article. I concur with the points made. The pictures really reminded me of my own wedding and the smiles and laughter that came when my mother in law ceremoniously picked up the sin sot in a cloth and struggled to carry it away due to its "huge weight". I wish I had known more about this custom at the time as I would have put more thought into it and arranged for a larger sin sot with perhaps some being returned to us."

By C. in London, UK.

"I paid no sin sot because my wife's family never raised the issue and I had no idea that sin sot existed at the time we married. Money was never a major issue for my wife's mother (never mentioned). She simply wanted her daughter to be happy and taken care of.

I don't disagree with the article at all, but its as one sided as Stickman i.e. a single persons view of Thai culture. Not all families conform to the picture painted in the family article and certainly not all farangs react in the same way.

It is impossible for anyone including those with a long standing relationship with Thailand and its language to encapsulate the complexities of the culture in a single short article (but a good effort nonetheless)"

By A. in Switzerland