High-tech dowries

In South Korea, marriage dowries are apparently shifting from items like home goods to plasma TVs and other high-end consumer electronics. From the International Herald Tribune:

The number of digital TV LG Electronics sold last year was six times that sold in 2001. Yoon In Duk, a marketing manager at LG Electronics, said the dowry market accounted for more than 40 percent of this increase.

A study last October by Interpark, one of the biggest Internet shopping malls in South Korea, showed that young brides allocated almost two-thirds of their dowry budgets to electronics goods...

Nowadays, custom still pressures the groom to prepare a house for the couple to live in - no longer a simple room at his parents' home. Given high real estate prices, it is perhaps not a surprise that grooms are getting more say in the dowry items selection.

"When we went shopping for electronic goods, my husband turned mute when I said that we should buy a smaller TV. When I finally gave up and said, 'O.K., I will buy you that big projection TV,' he was suddenly very happy and offered to chip in," said Kim Yeon Kyung, 27, who married a year ago.

Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)