A story from a friend working at the grassroots level:

Two people in a certain area went on a blind date, got engaged, and the man gave 380,000 yuan in bride price (local civil servants earn around 3,000 yuan per month). The woman kept dragging her feet and refusing to get married. The man demanded to call off the engagement and get the bride price back. The woman kept stalling and refusing to return the bride price.

Then one day, the man received a phone call asking him to go to the police station to assist with an investigation. Upon arriving, he discovered that the woman accused him of rape. Of course, the man denied it. He was detained at the police station for a day and then released.

Why was he released? Because the woman dropped the charges.

Why did the woman drop the charges? Because after the man's father learned his son was accused of rape, he went directly to the woman's house and said: "If my son goes to prison, I'll kill your whole family."

Then came the even more absurd part: The woman called the man and said she wanted to reconcile and discuss a wedding date. She claimed that accusing him of rape was her parents' idea and she knew nothing about it.

The man hesitated a bit, but his father slapped him across the face: "After all this, you still want to marry her? Are you trying to let her destroy you?"

Then they negotiated calling off the engagement and returning the bride price. A mediator proposed returning part of it, but the man's father firmly refused, bluntly saying: "Full refund. If you don't refund it all, I'll kill your whole family."

In the end, the entire bride price was returned.

Source: Li Fu