Dowries, dresses and debt

• Last Updated: November 10. 2009 4:56PM UAE / November 10. 2009 12:56PM GMT

They are meant to be joyous occasions to celebrate the union of a couple, but weddings are becoming an expensive business. M examines how the rising costs of getting married are affecting young people in the region.

Rampant materialism is warping the ancient Arab traditions of providing the best hospitality for guests and securing the future of a daughter. Splashy wedding receptions featuring designer gowns, lavish displays of food and dowries for brides that include fully furnished flats and cars are becoming common.

This year’s bridal show in Dubai featured a Dh1 million wedding gown embroidered with hundreds of thousands of Swarovski crystals. Four orders were said to have been placed. Instead of looking forward to finding a suitable companion to share their lives with, many young Arabs, men in particular, spend years struggling to save enough money to please potential in-laws.

As one Egyptian professional matchmaker puts it: “It is immaturity. A young man wants beauty, culture, good looks, everything. The girl wants someone who looks like Leonardo DiCaprio and is rich like Bill Gates.”

In the West, it is tradition for a couple to accumulate wealth over the course of a marriage. By convention, the first-year wedding anniversary gift is paper and a wife must wait until her 50th anniversary to receive gold.

But in Arab culture, newlyweds are expected to have all the material goods they need to start a life together. In the old days this would mean a few pieces of furniture and living with the in-laws. Today, with expectations rising, the middle classes in particular want expensive white goods, new cars and a healthy bank balance.

In Jordan, where the vast majority of people earn, on average, just Dh1,600 a month, it costs almost Dh37,000 to cover the basic costs of marriage, such as the dowry sum and furnishing an apartment. The financial and emotional burdens of pulling it off are enormous. The youth unemployment rate in the Middle East for those under the age of 30 is 25 per cent, compared with the world average of 14 per cent. As a result, in Egypt, for example, the average cost of a wedding is equivalent to four years of the groom and his father’s total earnings, while in Yemen it takes 10 years for a groom to save enough to buy a house.

Matrimony is out of reach for a growing number of young Arabs. A generation ago, if a man or woman was not married by the age of 25, he or she was considered a disgrace. But today, less than 50 per cent of men are married by their late 20s. For women, it is a similar picture, though the fact that women are better educated than their mothers and grandmothers is also a contributing factor.

But marriage remains a must. Common-law unions and having children outside marriage are acceptable in the West, but in Arab culture, the only transition to adulthood is via marriage. It does not matter if they are in their 20s or 30s, children cannot leave their parents’ home and get on with their lives in any meaningful way until they are wed.

What should be a happy milestone in a young person’s life is becoming a stressful and protracted period in which many are caught between the demands of tradition and the expectations of a consumer culture.

In a special report, we look at the experience of marriage in five Arab countries, and how the rising costs of getting married are affecting young people in the region.

Hamida Ghafour

Jordan

‘What happened to the good old days when the wedding ceremony simply included a bride paraded on a horse? Now, there are parents who ask for a wedding party in a hotel with a multi-layered cake, and some even go as far as asking for an apartment registered in the bride’s name. Parents need to be realistic, otherwise they are to blame if their daughters never marry.”

Zakiyyah Bourini is the founder of the Harraer Charitable society, which aims to help unmarried women over 30 become financially independent. The number of unmarried women in Jordan is growing because of the increased cost of getting married. A survey carried out at Jordan’s al Balqa Applied University found that it costs 7,000 dinars (Dh37,000) for a middle-class man to cover the basic costs of marriage, from the dowry to furnishing a rented apartment. That’s in a country where 85 per cent of the workforce earn less than 319 dinars (Dh1,650) a month. According to Bourini, a solution would be for families to lower expectations when it comes to the wedding party, gold (a traditional wedding gift) and dowries.

“Furniture is expensive, a gram of gold is more than 28 dinars (Dh147), while there are parents who ask for unreasonably high dowries,” she explains. “How can an employee pay for a dowry, a wedding party and furnish an apartment?”

Three generations ago, most women would have been married by the age of 21, and men at 26. Today, the economic struggles, in part, have put back the average marriage age to 29.5 for men and 26.4 for women. Although many women delay marriage to pursue education and careers, 7.6 per thousand women over 35 have never married.

“Society calls them spinsters. But they are women who are suffering,” Zakiyyah says. “Marriage and children provide women with social protection. These women have sacrificed their lives for their families, many have contributed to help pay for the education of their brothers. Their parents took advantage of their salaries and, therefore, refused to marry them off. And now, as they grow old and retired, nobody looks in their face. The problem gets worse for women who are uneducated and less privileged. I know of a brother whose wife is making his sister work for her as a maid, taking advantage of her need for a place to live in.”

Zakiyyah’s charity, founded in 2008, is trying to help unmarried women stand on their own feet. One of its aims is to create income-generating projects so that the women do not have to be supported by family members.

“We want to enrol university graduates in several courses that would improve their business and leadership skills in order to help them find jobs. We also want to conduct courses to teach others how to cross-stitch or weave bamboo, and then how to sell their products. We are also thinking of setting up a fully equipped kitchen where single women would make dishes and pastries that would be sold from our headquarters or delivered to customers.”

Suha Philip Ma’ayeh

Oman

The exorbitant costs of weddings in Oman has put a strain on many potential marriages. Dowry demands can be as high as 4,000 rials (Dh38,000) in cash, and the expensive jewellery traditionally given to a bride costs several thousand rials more. In most cases, the bride’s family will also demand a lavish ceremony that lasts several days. Critics of the dowry system say that the bride’s father usually sets the fee when he wants to finance an expensive purchase or, in these lean economic times, simply to boost his bank balance, turning their daughters into a costly commodity. The most common purchase in rural areas is a farm, while in bigger cities, it is a property that will provide an income from rent.

For young men like 27-year-old Husam al Jamali, the chances of meeting these demands are slim. With just a few years’ work experience behind them, a young man in his mid or late 20s will earn between 750 rials to 900 rials (Dh7,450 to Dh8,900) a month and will not have sufficient savings to finance a wedding. Some men resort to taking out crippling loans to be with the women they love.

Al Jamali, having bowed to the pressure from his parents to marry and settle down, is looking for a wife. However, he is considering a cost-cutting alternative that is becoming increasingly popular among local Omani men.

“I must admit that the thought of marrying a foreign woman has been in my mind for some time,” he says. “I would like to marry a local girl but I cannot afford the dowry, the gifts and the wedding celebrations.”

According to Husam, the most popular countries for potential suitors are other Arab and Islamic countries, such as Iraq, Iran or Morocco. “With foreign women, you give a token, a gift, for a dowry. The weddings are simple and the gifts are inexpensive. This way, you have more money for rent, furniture and a honeymoon.”

With fewer eligible husbands available, the number of unmarried women is growing, too. Thirty years ago, the most common age for women in Oman to get married was 18 to 22, but now, many women in their mid-30s are still looking for husbands (the government does not keep specific statistics). In some cases, women cut ties with their families to marry their sweethearts without their parents’ consent, although most of these women are financially independent graduates who earn enough to help their fiancé pay for a moderate wedding.

Husam, meanwhile, is still searching, but is keen to avoid taking the more traditional approach.

“The only way you can get the potential bride’s side to help with the wedding expenses is to marry your cousin. But many men are responding to the scientific findings that suggest close-relation marriages pass on hereditary diseases. Besides, marrying your cousin, in some cases, is not cool because we grow up with our uncles’ daughters and we have the same attachment that we have with our sisters. We prefer to date our future brides in college, or meet them on social ocassions.”

He says he would ideally like to marry a local girl “whose father has a moderate view” and is willing to break with tradition. “I will spend another year looking before I give up,” he sighs. “After that, I will go for a holiday in Morocco or Iraq and come back with a bride. If it is a solution for people like us, then it should be a lesson to fathers of these young girls to be less greedy.”

Saleh al-Shaibany

Yemen

Hussein Ali al Yafee is a cheerful young man. But his joy at getting married last July was short-lived since he and his wife have been forced to live in different towns. The cost of getting married has swallowed up all his earnings and he cannot afford to rent a flat for him and his new wife where he works in Sanaa.

“A young man in Yemen has to pay the dowry, the costs of the wedding ceremony and then rent and furnish a flat,” says Ali. “It is very difficult to do these three things. In Yemen, we usually say two hits on the head are painful, but these are three and not any head can bear them.”

The size of the dowry varies from one place to another and between families. “If the family of the bride are good, the dowry can be 700,000 rials (Dh12,600), including the costs of the bride’s jewels,” says al Yafee. “That alone can be 400,000 to 500,000 rials (Dh7,200 to Dh9,000), depending on how co-operative the bride’s family is.” Out of respect for his wife and her family, he declines to say how much he paid.

Despite the increasing cost of staging them, big weddings, with hundreds of guests, have become increasingly popular, particularly in urban areas where the less affluent try to keep pace with the wealthy. But Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. The average annual income is less than 183,000 rials (Dh3,500), with about 35 per cent of its 23 million population living below the poverty line. Unemployment is at 35 per cent.

For many grooms, one increasingly attractive solution is to take part in a mass wedding. These are organised by charities, private employers and government institutions, some accommodating thousands of grooms at one time.

This year, Ali was one of thousands of grooms who married this way. In traditional colourful Yemeni wedding attire decorated with flowers and with a sword at his side, he and 49 other men took their vows at a ceremony organised by his employers in Sana’a. Their brides, as is customary, waited for them at home.

In addition to covering the wedding costs, the company gave each groom a cash gift of $1,500 (Dh5,500).

But since Ali’s family live 192km away in Ibb, they were unable to attend the wedding and he had to organise another party for 200 guests in his home town. He seems angry with the tradition that forces grooms to spend so much on wedding ceremonies.

“The mass wedding was a great help for my colleagues whose families live in Sana’a,” he says. “It’s great support for employees whose income is limited. But for me, I had to use the money I got from the company – and more of my own – on the second wedding I had to have with my family and relatives. I could have saved that money to help me rent and furnish a flat and live with my wife.” He hopes to be reunited with her in three months’ time.

Mohammed al Qadhi

Lebanon

Weddings costing hundreds of thousands of dinars have become almost the norm in Lebanon, where the marriage industry banks on couples wanting the biggest, the best and flashiest event of the year. And the financial crisis has done little to stem the flow of cash as couples scrimp and save to ensure they put on the best show.

Getting married in Lebanon is not just a uniting of two families; it is also seen as a social occasion, an event that will be judged, discussed and dissected by all who attend. The per capita GDP is a little more than 9,000 Lebanese pounds (Dh22,000), and those on an average income will generally spend upwards of 60,000 Lebanese pounds (Dh146,000) on getting married. A wedding is an opportunity for families to show off their children and their success, but also an opportunity for the guests to compare and contrast with the other weddings they have attended that year. Tradition dictates that couples receive help from friends and family to pay for the occasion, although many are forced to take out a special wedding loan offered by the banks.

“There is a certain amount of pressure to have a lavish wedding in Lebanon,” Samah Ghazan confirms. She and her husband, Jad, tied the knot in July. “For a lot of people it is something to talk about. At the same time, your parents want you to have a big wedding because they want to show you off, so it’s not just about what you want, but also what makes them happy.”

This summer there was a surge in weddings in Lebanon. Following an unstable few years marred by war, conflict and assassinations, marital celebrations increased in 2009 as many expats returned home to enjoy the peace and tie the knot. As such, costs have increased significantly since last year.

“We did go into this with a budget,” says Samah, “and if we didn’t have any savings, there is no way we would have been able to do it. Such things as the dress and the photographer, our family helped out.”

Traditionally, the family of the groom is expected to pay for the wedding, while the bride’s family pay for her dress, hair and make-up. With more modern-thinking couples, both families chip in as much as they can.

“It is also dependent on how wealthy the family is, but these days there is an agreement on both sides,” Samah says.

For their wedding, she admits they had to tone it down. “With things like entertainment, we wanted a few things going on but the prices were very expensive. To get someone to perform would cost about 4,500 pounds (Dh11,000), but he could only stay there for half an hour because he’d have other weddings to go to on the same night. There are also details you never think of that add to the cost, such as the dancefloor, the projector, the fireworks, the roses on the napkins, the chair covers, how many girls you want to seat your guests?

“My husband had saved before the financial crisis started but after the crisis we decided to limit our spending, simply because we didn’t know what was going on and what the future would hold. We cut down on the honeymoon, and we watched where we spent and how much we spent. We didn’t have a problem splashing out but we just kept in mind that we didn’t know what was going to happen next year.”

Nour Samaha

UAE

Understatement is not normally a word associated with Emirati weddings – in fact, the more lavish, the better. The average wedding costs Dh300,000, with one in 10 topping Dh500,000. The dress alone can cost anything from Dh10,000 to upwards of Dh50,000, according to research commissioned for the Bride Show Dubai, making Emiratis some of the biggest spenders in the world when it comes to their nuptials.

That does not mean that everyone has the budget to match. Traditionally, the groom pays for everything, including a ballroom bedecked for 1,000-plus guests, musicians, outfits for the wedding party and numerous gifts for the bride, ranging from a diamond jewellery set, abayas and perfumes, to a dowry sum anywhere between Dh50,000 and Dh500,000.

The hefty cost can leave couples starting married life burdened with debt, but social pressures make it impossible for them to escape their obligations to keep both families and the community happy.

Daunted by the prospect of marrying an Emirati bride, an increasing number of grooms are turning to the cheaper option of choosing a foreign wife – a fact recognised by the government, which set up the Marriage Fund in the 1990s, offering grants of up to Dh70,000 to Emirati grooms marrying women from the UAE.

For those who cannot meet even the minimum cost of nuptials, a mass wedding becomes an attractive option. Government-organised group ceremonies in Abu Dhabi and Ras al Khaimah have involved up to 340 grooms tying the knot at one time, with the state footing the bill for the food and guests, and even supplying gold-embroidered bishts and ghutras for the men.

Opulent weddings are a social obligation that are hard to bypass, says Hibah Albakree, a Dubai-based wedding planner to the wealthy, whose lavish affairs begin with a Dh1 million price tag, and that’s before the dress and catering have been taken into account.

“It is one of the few forms of celebrations among women. They get to dress up, socialise, meet new people, look at others and enjoy good food and music for the night,” she says. “The family doing the wedding will take great honour in hosting their guests and make it a point to exercise the great generosity famous in the Middle East. Weddings are a form of exhibiting all that.”

No stone is left unturned in her themed ceremonies, which are planned to meticulous detail up to six months in advance and can involve venues being built from scratch.

For the wedding of a notable in April, she ordered a stretch marquee and a 22-metre long chandelier made of silver beads from Canada.

For other weddings, she has created flower arrangements from metal and adorned venues with huge laser-cut patterned metal panels and giant baubles made of thousands of flowers.

Such extravagance is not for those on a budget, but even high-end weddings have shown a note of restraint of late, thanks to the economic downturn.

“A lot of people want their wedding to look big budget, even if it is not,” says Hibah. “People simply don’t have the same budgets any more, although it is all relative – so people who would normally spend Dh4 million now want to spend Dh2 million.

“People have either been hit directly by the recession or they don’t want to be seen to flaunt their money. It makes my job harder because they do not want to lower their expectations and want the same results for less. I spend a great deal of time researching cost-effective materials.”

Cost-cutting measures include replacing glass vases with acrylic or bunching together carnations – the cheapest flower on the market – to give the same effect as hydrangeas, the most expensive bloom. To the untrained eye, they might look the same, but cutting corners shaves vital dirhams off the overall spend.

Another effect of the credit crunch has been for more minimalist affairs that bring the cost down by up to 40 per cent. At such weddings, guest numbers might be scaled down from 1,500 to 500 – still lavish by western standards.

“I have a lot of telephone requests for more simple, modern weddings,” says Hibah. “But when they ask if I can recreate a Dh2 million wedding for Dh400,000, I have to say no.”

Tahira Yaqoob