“Afghanistan tries to limit excessive wedding day costs - Boston Globe” plus 1 more

Afghanistan tries to limit excessive wedding day costs - Boston Globe

Posted: 06 Feb 2011 02:48 PM PST

KABUL, Afghanistan — They invited a thousand people to their wedding and 1,300 came. Pepsi, kabobs, and rice were served, beneath 5-foot chandeliers. A singer crooned about love. The shy bride wore gold jewelry. Her mother cried. The total bill came to more than $30,000.

But the groom responsible for paying for the wedding — Sultan Mehmood Faiz, a 23-year-old Web designer for the Ministry of Public Works — makes only about $300 a month. "In Afghanistan, people think marriage only comes once, so they are trying to arrange the best wedding, even if they are poor,'' said Faiz.

Marriage in this embattled nation is a two-sided coin: an emblem of hope for the future and a symbol of Afghanistan's battle with inflation.

In the nine years since the US military toppled the Taliban regime, the price of bread has jumped from 2 to 20 cents. A bundle of firewood has gone from 14 cents to $1.50. A simple house that rented for $30 per month now fetches $500. But perhaps nowhere has inflation caused more discomfort than in the skyrocketing cost of marriage, which has leapt from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands.

Marriage costs have become a major political issue. Members of Parliament, as well as the Ministry of Justice, are seeking to outlaw expensive weddings. The proposed law limits the number of outfits a groom must buy for his bride to three, and the number of guests at a wedding to 300, as well as mandates that the party end at 11 p.m.

On the fourth floor of the Ministry of Justice, a decrepit building with a stairway pockmarked with bullet holes from an insurgent attack, Abdul Majeed Ghanizada said it is vital to national security.

"Most of the young generation cannot get married, '' said Ghanizada, who drafted the bill. "Some people when they get engaged must go for several years to do manual labor in Pakistan to try to save money. And other people will join the Taliban, just so they can get paid and be able to marry.''

Faiz is one of the lucky ones. His father, who owns a successful construction company, helped pay for his wedding. But Afghan officials estimate that roughly half of all men of marriageable age can't afford to tie the knot.

Inflation ran 30.5 percent last year, in part because of the infusion of Western non-governmental organizations, military contractors, and foreign-educated specialists who are willing to pay top dollar for luxuries and necessities.

Afghan employees of foreign organizations, as well as corrupt Afghan officials and drug traffickers, easily earn a hundred times the salary of an ordinary person, making the gap between rich and poor in Afghanistan among the widest in the world.

"Huge money came to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban,'' said Ghanizada, who recalled that his own wedding in 1992, at the height of civil war, was held at home for $700. "Now, if a man has a daughter, he says, 'My daughter's wedding should be organized at the same hotel as my neighbor's daughter.' ''

Middle-class families in Kabul take out bank loans or sell their homes to pay for a marriage, which routinely includes feeding up to a thousand friends and relatives during three ceremonies, buying gold jewelry and as many as 15 bridal outfits, and paying a lump sum known as dowry to the bride's parents.

The problem is greatest in southern Afghanistan, where the insurgency rages, because dowry alone can reach $20,000, despite widespread poverty, Afghan officials said.

Families have coped in creative ways.

Elders have organized mass weddings, sometimes paid by a local charity, where dozens of couples marry.

Some parents quietly allow their future sons-in-law to have sexual relations with their daughters before the official marriage if the men make a down-payment on the dowry and begin working to pay off the rest. Parents seeking a match for their son look for potential brides with brothers who could marry their daughter, so that households merely swap daughters and no dowry is required.

But the proposed marriage law has provided the best hope for cash-strapped families.

"I hope they pass this law as soon as possible,'' said Qandi Gul, a 45-year old mother of 12, who bemoaned the high cost of weddings through the wire mesh of her burqa. Her third son, age 20, just got engaged and agreed to pay $3,330 for the dowry, even though he barely makes $5 a day selling bananas.

An additional amount must be saved by the family — whose 25 members live in one house and run a traditional bread shop — to book a wedding hall, she said.

But talk of the new law sparked some concern in the row of massive wedding halls that lines the road to the airport, decorated with purple trees and a fake moon three-stories high. Mohammed Yasin, the owner of the Kabul Paris Wedding Hall, said the government should consider the cost they incurred to build the halls — and the taxes they pay.

He said he felt for the common man who can't afford to marry but noted it would be hard to keep wealthy people in this lawless country from spending whatever they want.

"Even my special menu now is not enough for them, and they ask me for even more special things,'' he said, adding that some pay as much as $100,000.

At the nearby Uranus Wedding hall, decorated with a pink rose fountain, Nesar Ahmad , the 21-year-old manager, noted a silver lining: An elite class of young men with high-paying jobs cover the cost of their own weddings and therefore are more empowered to choose whom they marry — a decision traditionally made by parents.

Faiz chose his own bride — a cousin who appealed to him because of her good character and education. Still, he told them he didn't want to pay dowry.

"These rules are from before, and we are in the 21st century,'' he said. But he and his parents agreed to pay for a wedding at Mumtaz, one of Kabul's most expensive wedding halls. They rented the bridal clothes and chose the most economical menu, but the costs still mounted.

Even one of the highlights of the ceremony required cash: As per tradition, his sister danced with the knife and refused to give it up for the cutting of the cake until he forked over about $75. The memory of it made him smile.

"That was my favorite part,'' he said.

Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.

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18k White Gold 2mm Traditional Women’s Wedding Band - Zimbio

Posted: 06 Feb 2011 12:32 PM PST

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