Unfavorable, costly customs make marriages difficult

KABUL (Pajhwok): Some couples have recently developed consensus to keep their wedding expenses minimum considering the problems some people faced due to unfavorable and costly wedding customs.

It is pertinent to mention that some families forced groom to organize engagement, hina night, wedding reception and some other related events in restaurant which required huge amount of money.

In addition, the bride family demanded cash and order purchase of gold and other equipment required for the household.

Youth affected by extravagant wedding expenditures

Mohammad Edress, the resident of Kabul City, said: “I have been engaged from the past three years but still I have been unable to get engaged because the bride mother says that her daughter is going to marry one time and she has a lot of dreams to be fulfilled and demand extra-ordinary wedding ceremony.”

Edress, who has a five member family, said fulfilling their dreams was not possible in a short time.

Arif, 30, another youth who is unable to organize his weeding said: “My in-laws demanded 500,000 in cash, gold set and organizing the wedding reception in hotel. In current circumstance when there is not work I am surprised how to arrange all this.”

He said after engagement he went to Iran to arrange the expenses of wedding but he earned a small amount there which could not even compensate his family.

Simple wedding receptions;

Enayat Baigzad, 29, from the Dasht-i-Barchi area of Kabul arranged his wedding ceremony at the cost of 1,500 afs last year said he has a happy life

He now has a daughter and work as teacher at one of Kabul Schools. He told Pajhwok Afghan News he purchased households and appliances with the amount he wanted to spend on extravagant wedding reception and other events.

Baigzad said he would have been under debt now had he now decided to arrange simple wedding ceremony.

“We are disgusted by these exorbitant costs, the extravagant practice that takes place in wedding parties has no place in our religion,” he said.

He asked other youth who are unable to organize their wedding reception to follow their model and refrain from extravagant expenses.

Hikmatullah, another resident of Kabul who recently got engaged, said: “I did not have the ability to organize great wedding reception. I told my in-laws regarding my simple wedding reception and promised to them to keep their daughter happy.”

He said his in laws were enlightened people they agreed to his simple wedding plan considering the happy and bright future of their daughter.

“I will organize a very simple party at the hotel, I will buy clothes, gold and everything for my lady if it is average, and I promised myself that in the future I will buy gold for her according to her wishes and I will always look after her,” he said.

Expert’s opinion:

Mufti Shamsurrahman Farotan, a religious scholar, said: “Useless spending is haram in Islam especially extravagant expenses in wedding. Allah calls these people the brothers of Satan.”

He added the prophet said: “The worst meal is the meal of reception because needy people are not invited while rich people get invitation.”

He asked people to refrain from extravagant expenses and spent the amount on constructing bridge, hospital and other projects of welfare.

Najmiah Abdullah, a civil society activist in Kabul, said: “I believe the more the wedding and receptions are simple the more the couple would be happy, the more unpleasant norms are kept in consideration the more it caused challenges for the couple in the future.”

She said that she herself witness such incidents when the bride family put burden on the groom family for the wedding ceremony but in the future the bride had difficult time and even sold their jewelry to pay all the expenses they made during wedding.

Kabul University Teacher Sharafuddin Azeemi said increase in unfavorable customs and traditions among people could cause various problems, including separation of families, family violence, creation of psychological problems between spouses, migration of young people, addiction, disability due to hard labour in order to arrange money for the wedding and disappointment among young people from wedding.

He urged public awareness and imposition of strict laws by the government to prevent extravagant expenses in the weddings.

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