At the mention of her own family, Liu Cuiying began shedding tears again.
"My own family! Ha!
My mother died when I was very young.
Not long afterward, my father used the dowry my mother had left behind to remarry. I scraped out a living under my stepmother's thumb, and life was miserable...
My stepmother didn't want me to have a good life, so she married me off to a family like the Zhang Family.
Later, I asked my father for my mother's dowry. He said she hadn't left anything behind and told me not to listen to other people's nonsense."
After a pause, Liu Cuiying continued.
"I know my father simply doesn't want to give me my mother's dowry.
When my father married my mother, the Liu Family was penniless. Now they live in comfort, all thanks to my mother's dowry.
When I was very young, my father tricked me into handing over the Dowry Inventory my mother had left behind.
Now there's nothing I can do!"
"Liu Cuiying, don't worry. I'll have someone look into it in a moment.
Before getting married, some women take their dowry inventories to the Yamen to register them.
I don't know whether your mother registered hers. I'll send someone to check right now!"
Many people knew that dowries could be registered with the Government Office, but only wealthy households actually did so.
Among ordinary families, women's dowries were meager to begin with. They also feared that if the groom's family found out they had registered them, they would think they were being guarded against. To avoid misunderstandings, ordinary families rarely did this.
But after witnessing what had happened today, who could guarantee that her husband would never have a change of heart?
To give their children some security, it seemed registering dowries