@Aeriandra:
The worst and best of it is indeed that he's by all appearances totally acting out of love and respect (for her and her great-grandfather)... But, with the worldview of someone who was raised in a highly traditional environment, wherein, among other things, the idea that a woman might be able to take care of herself is just totally alien. To say nothing of old Confucian ideas about families and marriages, no doubt. It is totally believable that he might think this is something he
has to settle before he dies, as a matter of grave responsibility. And I can't really blame him too much on these fronts; he's just old (and probably no one's dared tell him he's wrong in decades...)
But even with all that... he should have been able to figure out the terrible consequences of going about this by attaching a prize to her! Alas, he seems to be caught up in his own private fantasies about how this is all going to be
so. great. The whole thing is actually rather sad. Particularly because I know this sort of thing happens in real life, too (well, in broad strokes: I'm thinking of all the well-meaning grandparents pushing for arranged marriages in ways that won't actually bring happiness and just cause rifts in families—not this
particular extravagant nightmare of rich-suitor families.)