Money cannot buy you love, but it’s crucial for the perfect wedding.
There’s more voodoo than science to calculating sin sod, or dowry, and you may have trouble communicating with the parents of your bride-to-be. Or maybe your special lady is proposing an amount that seems on the high side.
Don’t worry. It pains us to say it but: Now there’s an app for that.
Developed by a Thai man, the “Sin Sod” app calculates your fiancee’s worth using historical data and economic theory.
According to the developer’s note, marriage is considered a “binding commitment” under the law. Meanwhile, dowry is a part of Thai marriage custom which both families have to negotiate for the amount that pleases both sides, so the amount of dowry varies and does not have a fixed market price.
Therefore, the developer assigns the app that estimates dowry based on Hedonic Pricing Model, which estimates the value of something by both its internal characteristics and the external factors affecting it.
What this means is that you punch into the app information about age, salary, education, and family baggage.
As you conveniently enter your info into the app, it will calculate dowry by referencing statistics collected from 220 married Thai couples in Bangkok who were wed between 1983 and 2007.
Someone really took this seriously, didn’t he?
Since the app is in Thai, here’s a rough translation of what you need to fill in:
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”46163″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”452″,”style”:”display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”318″}}]]
And voila! You’ve now know how much money you’ll need to save to make her yours.
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_original”,”fid”:”46158″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”height”:”282″,”style”:”display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”width”:”318″}}]]As a Thai woman, I think the above price of more than THB1 million seems common, which is to say, way too high.
But remember if you two actually marry for love (meaning you’re not looking for a housekeeper/golddigger,) some common ground should be set, and she likely will understand your zero dowry policy when the dowry is part of the wedding ceremony but is returned to the new couple afterward.
Intrigued by the zero dowry idea? Read more about it here: Why I’m worth it: in defense of the dowry.
