Asking a dad for permission to marry a woman is fucking disgusting and needs to go away. Women aren’t property. Children aren’t property. Fucking toxic shit.
It’s more like “can I be in your family” now a days. If my wife’s dad said no, I would’ve still married her. But knowing that I’m accepted into their family is nice.
If that’s the question, why is it always the father they ask?
Or like from dude to guy talking to make sure we don’t bother eachother. As you saw in the example, he had a bike coming and he would have disturbed that.

He didn’t ask because he knew a bike was coming. That was just serendipity.

This attitude of asking a father permission stems from the archaic attitude that women are the property of their fathers and then their husbands.