Sumba Is Home to the World's Most Complex Marriage Proposals: High Bride

There is an island in Eastern Indonesia where noble women are so expensive to marry, they can stay single forever. In Sumba, costly dowries in the form of livestock are based on the social status of the bride and decided by an all-night bargain. The more respected she is, the more horses and buffalos are herded to her house. High caste families can demand up to a hundred animals or around thirty thousand dollars.
Although dowry responsibility is shared among the groom's whole family, the complicated journey has pushed many young men to marry outside of the island. As modernity has crept into their culture, traditional rituals like this have become more rare. To understand why some families are still retaining this ancient practice, our correspondent, Rizky Rahadianto, follows the journey of Piter Praing, a young Sumba boy who is taking a seven hour trip to propose to his girlfriend.
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