A woman in China died by suicide after her family forced her into an engagement with a blind date.  According to the South China Morning Post, the 19-year-old named Tongtong was pressured into getting engaged to a man she had only met five days before. 

Notably, the teen ran a small clothes shop with her mother in their hometown. Her mother thought the groom’s better-off financial situation would ”make her life easier”. Though Tongtong felt reluctant when the man proposed, her mother and a matchmaker persuaded her to accept.

At the engagement ceremony, the man’s family gave Tongtong’s mother 270,000 yuan (Rs 33,40,730) bride’s price. However, she did not like the man as he was rude and demanding. She even tried to break off the engagement but the matchmaker convinced her not to do so citing her mother’s financial constraints. 

However, 17 days after the engagement, she took a drastic decision and threw herself into the river near her home. After her death, her fiancé demanded her mother return the bride price.

The girl’s greedy mother gave him 180,000 yuan but refused to return the full amount because the man lied about his age. 

But the man’s family remained adamant and demanded the money. They blocked her shopfront with a car and played messages in a loop over a loudspeaker, demanding the bride’s price. 

Meanwhile, the teen’s mother, matchmaker and the man all blamed each other for Tongtong’s death.

The tragic story has sparked outrage on social media in China and ignited a debate about marriage and women’s rights. One user wrote on Weibo, ”This is such a horror story. The girl is a daughter, a wife-to-be, a good financial resource, but never herself.”

Forced marriages are common in China, especially in underdeveloped areas. In urban areas, unmarried women aged over 30 are usually stigmatised as ”leftover women” and face pressure from parents to get married.