The following article is written by SHAHLA NAIMI for WOMEN'S VOICE NOW and is reprinted in its entirety ...
A Family Affair
Zeba is 23 years old, sitting calmly in a green silk dress, adorned
with gold jewelry and a sheer scarf revealing her curled, light-brown
hair. She whispers a joke to her younger sister, who laughs loudly and
calls over to their preoccupied mother, busy entertaining three of more
than 300 guests attending Zeba’s wedding to Jamshid, a 25-year-old
aspiring pharmacist.
The women’s section of the wedding hall is covered in pink and white
rose petals and large tulips imported from India. Small children dressed
in faded heels and suits run from one corner to another, dodging the
reaching arms of young women and mothers trying to reign in the unruly
small guests.
“I could not leave my kids at home. There was no one to care for them
because we all had to come to the wedding and now the food is almost
gone,” says Basbibi, feeding her two-year-old daughter while another
six-year-old boy stands nearby soothing his crying toddler brother.
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| Photo Credit: Women's Voices Now |
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Sinking in Debt
“500 people. 500 people. We had to feed 500 people, and all their
kids and their cousins and their cousin’s children and just everyone,”
said Jamshid’s father, Wahidullah, speaking to me the day following the
wedding. The night before, greeting every guest at his son’s nuptials,
he stood at the entrance of the Qalb-e-Asia (Heart of Asia) wedding hall
from five pm until 11pm, and carefully noted the relatives who did not
make an appearance (as per his wife’s orders).
“I will not lie. I told my wife this and I will tell you this: I
secretly hoped few people would come. I make $500 a month. My son makes
$250 a month. Our rent is $170 month. Oil is more expensive these days,
and the price of bread just keeps going up. You know how much this
wedding has cost me? $22,000. I owe everyone money, including my
daughter-in-law’s family now.”
In Afghanistan’s urban centers, high wedding costs are
disproportionate to meager salaries, leaving many families little choice
but to borrow money from wherever they can. The cost of renting venues,
buying dresses and gifts, organizing vehicle transport, purchasing food
for hundreds of guests, and more, adds up quickly. Additional
expenditures related to Afghan traditions, including providing the bride
with gifts during an engagement ceremony and paying the bride’s family
an agreed upon mahr (interpreted as a dowry, or bride price), make an
Afghan wedding an expensive affair.
Prior to the wedding, Wahidullah paid Zeba’s father only half of the
agreed upon $10,000 mahr. Feeling pressure from Zeba’s family to come up
with the remaining $5,000 before the rest of the family found out their
daughter had married with only half her publicized dowry, this was the
first debt he would soon have to settle. Although Jamshid’s family could
not afford such a high dowry, Zeba’s family refused to agree to the
marriage unless the bride price was at least $10,000.
A Proposal and A Wedding
Two years ago, Jamshid met Zeba at Kabul University where they were
classmates in the pharmaceutical faculty. Jamshid immediately fell for
the girl who always wore a blue pin to hold her scarf on her head, and
looked for any way to speak to her – borrowing a pencil, befriending her
cousin who was also in the class, and once convincing her it was too
dangerous to walk alone to the gate to be picked up by her older
brother. During their first walk together, he told her how he felt, and
she responded simply: “I will never marry before I finish my studies.”
“Okay,” he replied.
A year before the two graduated, Jamshid’s mother, Mariam, was in the
living room putting on a light pink blush and a new velvet dress-suit
her daughter embroidered for her the previous week. As usual, Mariam’s
older sister arrived late, wearing bright red lipstick that was
immediately removed by Jamshid’s mother.
“You can’t wear that right now. What will they think of us?” With the
lipstick wiped off, the two sisters quickly went on their way to visit
Zeba’s home.
Their job was to ask for Zeba’s hand in marriage on Jamshid’s behalf.
They kept to all formalities – bringing large amounts of sweets for
Zeba, allowing Zeba’s mother to do the talking, and, occasionally,
dropping hints of their intentions. Zeba served the visitors tea,
attending to all of their needs and speaking as quietly as possible. It
was the first time she saw Jamshid’s mother. Zeba wanted her mother to
approve the proposal, having hoped to marry Jamshid from the moment she
first saw him hide a pencil in his coat pocket before asking her for
one. She always kept extra pencils after that.
Jamshid’s mother left and Zeba went to the kitchen where her younger
sister was busy preparing dinner. Her parents whispered in the living
room, making calls to their relatives until dinner was on the table. The
next morning, Zeba’s mother asked her daughter to come into the living
room while her father sat nearby, engrossed in reading the Quran.
“The family of your classmate has come asking for your hand, and we want to know how you feel about this,” her mother asked.
“Whatever you want. I will do whatever you two believe is best,” Zeba replied.
“Okay. Good. We approve of the match and would like to see you two
married,” her mother explained, noting further that the said “classmate”
came from a good family and would treat her well. They lived nearby, so
Zeba would not be too far from her family and, at the insistence of
Zeba’s father, Jamshid’s family agreed to wait for the wedding until
after his daughter’s college graduation.
With the match finalized, the engagement party – another often
extravagant affair, but this time paid for by the bride’s family - was
set to occur two months later. Meanwhile, dowry negotiations began.
Jamshid’s mother proposed a $5,000 dowry, countered by Zeba’s mother
with $17,000. The two eventually settled on $10,000, $1,000 higher than
the dowry Zeba’s cousin received.
“My daughter is beautiful and is graduating from college. I can’t
have her go for less than my niece who barely finished high school. We
have spent a lot of money on her and we cannot afford a dowry any less
than this,” Zeba’s mother explained.
The bride price sparked competition between Zeba’s mother and aunt.
Whose daughter was worth more? Zeba’s mother won the battle this round,
but kept in mind that Zeba’s dowry set the precedent for future
daughters. Zeba’s mother believed the dowry was equivalent to a
daughter’s public worth and her family’s reputation. It was also a
practical matter. Zeba’s family, severely in debt from her older
brother’s marriage ceremony two years earlier, needed the income a dowry
provided, and started planning for their youngest daughter to marry
soon as well. Saddled with the costs of the wedding and the remaining
dowry balance, the transferred wedding dues now put Jamshid’s family in
debt, too.
As the $22,000 cost of Jamshid’s wedding illustrates, society’s
expectations of families in Afghan’s urban centers to throw extravagant
weddings they cannot afford cause a disconnect between capacity and
reality. Despite the fact that his family earns a few hundred dollars
each month, Jamshid’s family and many others in a similar financial
situation are expected to book wedding halls that accommodate hundreds
of guests. Whispers of shame circulate if anyone fails to receive an
invitation. Newlyweds’ fathers feel little agency, keeping the doors
open and feeding whoever arrives with a smile.
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| Afghan women. Photo Credit: Guardian UK |
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Mahr Mistintrepreted: Tensions Between Governmental Control and Cultural Practice in Afghanistan
Article 14 of Afghanistan’s 1971 Law on Marriage introduces mahr as a
requirement for a valid Muslim marriage. In the next article, it states
that the relatives of the bride may not “ask or receive under any title
any cash or goods from the groom or his relatives. If such an act is
done, those who commit it shall be pursued and punished according to the
provisions of law.”
In accordance with Shari‘a, which mandates a mahr as a prerequisite
to marriage, the Government of Afghanistan requires that any registered
and legally recognized marriage include a nekah nama (marriage contract)
that has an explicit mahr, an amount of money or other property given
from the groom directly to the bride for her exclusive use. However,
while Afghanistan’s civil code makes several references to a bride’s
exclusive right to a mahr, customary practice often replaces the mahr
with a dowry given to the bride’s family. This transaction is called
walwar in Pashto, qalin in Uzbeki, and shirbaha, or toyaana, in Dari,
which translates as a “price” for a woman for marriage.
On the ground, weddings generally remain outside of the government’s
control and oversight. In practice, Afghan civil law often fails to
enforce its own legal requirements pertaining to marriage,
simultaneously contributing to non-adherence to Islamic law. In fact,
families are often unaware of the Islamic requirements for marriage. A
mahr, a clear stipulation for Muslim marriages, is often misinterpreted
or wholly ignored between negotiating families.
The mahr is meant to serve as a safety net for a woman, giving her
the freedom to provide for herself if needed, not as a dowry or bride
price, given to the bride’s family as payment in exchange for raising
her. She is supposed to have sole ownership of the mahr, and the full
authority to use it as she wishes. She is also the only person who can
forgive the mahr, deciding for herself if she does not want a mahr or
its full payment.
Dowry does not exist in Islam. The interpretation of mahr as a dowry
is a purely cultural practice that is not rooted in Shari‘a.
Nevertheless, in Afghanistan, a mahr rarely makes it into the hands of
the bride herself.
Another obstacle to enforcement of legal marriage proceedings in
Afghanistan is that few Afghan couples formally register their weddings,
as there is little incentive to proceed through the difficult task of
formal marriage registration. Registration is a multi-step process that
requires the police and local village leaders’ written confirmations
that the marriage was not forced or arranged for a child, and the
production of valid identification documents for both the bride and
groom. In most cases, women do not possess the state-issued credentials
needed to register a marriage. Consequently, couples do not fulfill the
basic requirements of the registration procedure. In 2012, fewer than
700 marriages were registered in Kabul, despite a population size in the
millions.
In Afghanistan, even among educated families, the lack of awareness
about the meaning of mahr remains an obstacle. Zeba, for instance,
believed that Shari‘a required a mahr to be paid to her family. For the
majority of women in Afghanistan they have never even heard of a mahr,
leaving many brides without this Islamic-sanctioned protective measure.
Not being aware of the bride’s right to a mahr, a young wife is
vulnerable. Out of her father’s home and into her husband’s home, she
often possesses few non-social resources. She likely does not hold a job
or have any private income, and remains entirely dependent upon her
husband for her sustenance. While it is a husband’s Islamic duty to care
for and respect his wife, this duty is not always fulfilled. Wives are
sometimes neglected. Other times they are abused. And sometimes, despite
a husband’s best efforts, in cities with high unemployment and
underemployment, he cannot earn enough to provide for her.
A woman’s possession of her mahr offers short-term financial security
to pursue her own interests. For example, she could pay her own tuition
and return to school, or she could invest in a business. In the event
of the dissolution of her marriage, mahr could offer a woman the chance
to consider living on her own with her family or, if not a sufficient
amount, as is likely the case, it could at least provide her some
financial independence and give her time to find a way to increase her
holdings. While the mahr cannot be considered welfare, nor is it a
monthly paycheck, it gives an Afghan bride that little bit of legroom so
she can attempt to build something for herself.
The Need for Awareness: An Extreme Case
One young woman living about 10 kilometers north of Kabul city sat
outside repairing the buttons on her father’s shirt as we waited for her
younger sister to bring us lunch. “I got married when I was 16 years
old, and I was very excited. But, when I moved in with him, he and his
family beat me,” she said. “He humiliated me and treated me horribly,
sending me to the hospital with a broken leg and blood loss. I could not
breathe those days.”
It was not until three years later, at the age of 19 that Fahima fled
to her parents’ home, pleading for a divorce. Her family was
devastated. Fahima’s mother said, “We had no idea that this was her life
for three years. She came to us so broken. I had only seen her once
during that time until she came to us crying.”
Fahima soon divorced and returned to the safety of her childhood
home. She was unable to find a job and her family’s financial
constraints tempted them to find another match for her against her
wishes.
“I can’t do anything. I can’t go to school or work, so I just have to
sit here. I should get married, I think, but I don’t want to,” Fahima
said, carefully putting each thread through the button’s hole.
At the time of her marriage, a small dowry of $150 was given to
Fahima’s father for his daughter’s hand. Her father borrowed the same
amount three years later to pay his son-in-law’s family for a divorce.
Fahima was given no mahr herself and left her marriage empty-handed with
an unemployed father, now in debt. Her options were slim. A second
marriage and another dowry for her family seemed likely.
Fahima is now engaged to a 45-year-old man with four children from a
previous marriage. She has high hopes for her next marriage and the
ceremony will take place this spring. Of course, when Fahima’s family
receives a second dowry for her hand in marriage, the mahr will remain
with her parents. Should the marriage share a similar fate to her first,
Fahima will find herself in the same compromised position that followed
the end of her previous marriage.
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| Afghan women. Photo Credit: CBC.ca |
What Lies – And What Should Lie - Ahead
The government, legal, and religious leaders should aim to spread
awareness of a bride’s right to mahr, as required by Islam, and launch a
government-sponsored campaign to increase the percentage of formally
registered marriages. Registration can be used as a tool to track and
mandate mahr for Afghan women. If the process is streamlined to provide
incentives for registration while maintaining the necessary checks on
the legality of the marriage, then more couples are likely to register
their marriages in accordance with state and Islamic legal requirements.
This state-based advocacy, if successful, could also address the issue
of high wedding costs by spreading awareness of its negative
consequences and encourage families to take a more affordable path.
Legal advocacy groups as well as women’s rights groups should
cooperate with the government in launching these awareness campaigns and
streamlining the marriage registration system.
While marriages are often successful – Zeba and Jamshid are both
married happily and expecting their first child in three months – Afghan
women still need the protective measure mahr offers them. A person,
after all, can only speak so loudly and be heard so often, when she is
dependent on another person for something as basic as food.
Shahla Naimi lives in Afghanistan where she studies the
development of legal systems, with a focus on frameworks in
Muslim-majority countries (Afghanistan, Egypt and Morocco), as well as
international and domestic refugee laws. Her interests remain on methods
of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and legal reasoning (‘aql), considering
– from an anthropological perspective – how laws can be interpreted and
enforced. She has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and
Central Asia.
