"How is this marriage deception at all?"

The middle-aged woman immediately became displeased, her face etched with grievance.

She immediately defended herself. "Isn't a dowry always required when marrying?"

"Our parents had both met, and we'd nearly settled on the dowry. But then, they suddenly demanded the entire dowry back."

"We refused to return it, so they sued us, claiming we had committed marriage deception..."

In her description, the relationship between the two families had originally been quite good. Both sets of parents had met, and they had started discussing the marriage. They had come to an agreement on the dowry, but then the other side suddenly wanted to call off the marriage. They even demanded the return of the dowry.

"Lawyer Zhang, tell me, do such things really happen in this world?" The middle-aged woman grew more and more indignant. "My daughter is so innocent! She even got the marriage certificate with him, and now they just call off the wedding out of the blue. How will people look at her after this?"

"As for the dowry, it was rightfully ours. Besides, they were the ones at fault first, so we don't have to return it, do we?"

In her version of events, her family had done nothing wrong. Instead, it appeared the other family was being somewhat unreasonable.

Zhang Wei looked at her intently and put down the copy of the complaint in his hand.

He asked directly, "Then... why does the complaint say that your demands for the dowry kept increasing?"

He didn't quite believe the middle-aged woman's one-sided account. Every defendant tends to justify things in their favor when they meet with their lawyer, seeking psychological affirmation. Just like this dowry case.

The other party had described the events clearly in the complaint.

Initially, the dowry was set at 660,000 yuan. Later, it rose to 880,000 yuan, then to 1,080,000 yuan. Finally, it simply shot up to 1,680,000 yuan.

In desperation, the other party chose to cancel the marriage and demanded the return of the dowry, stating they would not go through with it.

But the middle-aged woman, upon hearing his question, retorted without a second thought, "Negotiating a dowry isn't against any laws concerning price hikes, is it?" Her face expressed that this was the most natural thing in the world. She felt she had done nothing wrong.

Zhang Wei was taken aback. For a moment, he was speechless. Indeed, legally speaking, there's no provision stating that a dowry cannot increase in price. This is different from market conduct; those exorbitant restaurants clearly violate market economy laws, constituting illegal price gouging. But for marriage between men and women, the dowry, as a folk custom, is not within the scope of legal regulation. Theoretically speaking, as long as you're affluent enough, even a dowry of one hundred million yuan is permissible.

"Moreover, we weren't asking for an unreasonable price. Xiao Gang found a partner; he's about to get married too, and they also demand a flat 660,000 yuan for the dowry," continued the middle-aged woman. "We originally only wanted a dowry of 660,000 yuan too, but Xiao Gang's fiancée demanded we buy a house and a car in Jin City."

"We're just ordinary working-class people; how could we afford a new house?"

"We had to find a way through his sister's dowry. Once she's married off, he'd also be able to afford a wife... These days, getting married is just too hard."

As the middle-aged woman spoke, she couldn't help but sigh with emotion. From her words, she seemed to deeply detest these outdated customs like marriage dowries...

Zhang Wei swallowed hard, gradually understanding the whole story. But still, he confirmed carefully, "This Xiao Gang... who is he?"

The middle-aged woman let out a sigh, her tone one of utter helplessness. "Who else could it be but Lele's younger brother?"

Her name was Yan Yeyun. She had an elder daughter, Wen Le, and a younger son, Wen Jingming. The younger son wasn't very promising. He was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old and still earning a monthly salary of three thousand yuan, constantly asking her for money.

A few months ago, she had found a match for her younger son. At first, everything was going well. They were close to discussing marriage when the other family made an exorbitant demand: they actually wanted a dowry of 660,000 yuan.

After much thought, she could only focus on her elder daughter's dowry, resulting in the series of events that followed.

Yan Yeyun looked at Zhang Wei and finally got to the point. "Lawyer Zhang, that's the situation. How should we handle this case? If you take it, are you confident of winning?"

She had some knowledge of the law and understood that the court's decision could have significant repercussions. It couldn't be taken lightly. So after receiving the summons, she had inquired everywhere for a reliable law firm and had found her way to Zhang Wei. She had heard about a case that had caused a sensation throughout Jin City not long ago. Zhang Wei had represented over nine hundred defendants in it, securing significant sentence reductions for them.

"This case... is a bit tricky," Zhang Wei frowned slightly and spoke honestly.

Yan Yeyun's expression tightened, and she quickly said, "Money is not an issue, as long as we can win the lawsuit!"

"It's not about the money," Zhang Wei shook his head, then continued to analyze. "The current lawsuit against you is for marriage deception. This means you are accused of using marriage as a pretext to fraudulently obtain a large dowry."

"To put it more seriously, this could constitute the crime of fraud. Fraud, by definition, is the act of obtaining a large amount of public or private property through the fabrication of facts or concealment of truth, with the intent of illegal possession."

"Based on the amount involved, this case is considered to involve an especially large sum. Normally, it's punishable by ten years or more in prison, or even life imprisonment."

After Zhang Wei finished his analysis, Yan Yeyun suddenly exclaimed, "That's not right! How did we commit marriage deception?"

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