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the marriage market - discuss
this article
while many young couples will
spend the eid el hob – egypt’s answer to valentine’s
day – gazing into each other’s eyes, it will take more
than a little dose of love potion to jumpstart the stagnant marriage
market
by daliah merzaban
ask any egyptian to name the most urgent financial
dilemma facing families today, and marriage will usually rank top
of the list.
no matter how you cut it, the marriage process has become a financial
and psychological trauma for many young couples and their families,
as they try to reconcile harsh economic conditions – such as
rising unemployment and inflation – with the inflexible customs
and traditions associated with sacred matrimony.
in the marriage market, the forces of supply and demand are visibly
distorted: men who have both the means and desire to marry are in
short supply, while women from their early 20s to early 30s search
anxiously for their prince charming in a sea of unemployed, financially
immobile and frustrated young
bachelors.
informal marriage statistics indicate that the number of couples
getting hitched is, in fact, declining, with 452,000 marriage contracts
signed in 2002 compared to 592,000 in 2000.
as the economic, societal and cultural expectations surrounding
marriage become more and more difficult to live up to, market players
are clambering to find ways to adjust.
a buyer’s market
a widely held perception is that single women outnumber single
men by a factor of four – and, according to some, as much as
eight – to one. women, not surprisingly, under the pressure
of cultural mores that dictate they find husbands by their early
20s, agonize over such statistics.
they will be relieved to know, however, that the skewed sex ratio
is, in actuality, a “popular myth,” according to magdy
abdel kader, an expert on population and demographics at the cairo
demographic center, who explained that the gender ratio is actually
about 105 males for every 100 females. “the suggestive views
of people regarding the sex ratio rely on ignorance, not on scientific
facts,” he said.
nevertheless, any observer of – or commodity on – the
marriage market is well aware that, while a single man can expect
to be introduced to plenty of potential arousas (brides), the market
for an arees (groom) presents much slimmer pickings.
“there is a critical shortage of grooms on the market –
we have felt it in our home,” related mona feris, one of seven
daughters living in a lower middle-class neighborhood in giza. feris,
24, is already married and has one daughter. but five of her sisters
are still waiting for mr. right – fully aware that the clock
is ticking. after reaching 24 or 25 years of age, the women of this
community – few of whom have much formal education – are
popularly considered less desirable to would-be husbands. “we
need a groom of the same class and financial status, who is from
a good family and has a job. but there are few such men around,”
observed feris.
while the reasons may differ, women in the upper and upper-middle
classes are also hard pressed to find satisfactory suitors. these
women – generally more educated and often professionally driven
– tend to enjoy greater independence from the traditional household
gender roles. this, according to malak rouchdy, a sociologist at
the american university in cairo, leads them to demand more from
marriage and society. “there are women of marriageable age
who are not willing to compromise on their choices. for instance,
many women now are not willing to abandon their jobs, for reasons
of security,” rouchdy explained.
sally nasif, a 31-year-old reservation manager at a multinational
five-star hotel, turned down a prospective groom when he refused
to allow her to keep her job after marriage. “often, men feel
that i’m better than they are, and are intimidated,” she
said, echoing many other upwardly mobile young women who complain
that, for cultural reasons, most men prefer less independent women
– at least when it comes to settling down.
but nasif worries at the noticeable lack of men on the market, especially
in the coptic christian community. when another groom comes a-knocking,
she said, she would consider – albeit reluctantly – ceding
to his some of his wishes. “i would prefer to work. but i don’t
think i’ll let that point stop me from getting married in the
future,” she said.
professional muslim women, too, find “suitable” men to
be in short supply, according to 27-year-old public relations manager
amira, who declined to give her full name. “the most important
thing is to find someone you love and respect. i haven’t found
that yet,” she said.
according to many women, the disproportionate number of would-be
brides on the market only serves to swell the already inflated egos
of the few eligible young bachelors that are out there. many of
these men are content to be unattached, and form many casual relationships
with females, satisfying only so long as the word “commitment”
doesn’t enter the conversation. “they know that girls
cannot find husbands... and can have many girlfriends, and do whatever
they want, without getting married,” amira said.
a material world
for most men, though, it’s the size of their wallets, rather
than their egos, which confines them to the matrimonial sidelines.
in the west, the notion that professional doctors and lawyers represent
the best “catches” has become a cliché. but, according
to rouchdy, marriage constitutes “suicide” for their egyptian
counterparts – thanks mainly to monthly salaries of around
£e 500 or less. given the current wave of inflation, during
which the prices of most commodities have risen as much as 50 percent,
“there is no way to live decently,” commented rouchdy.
mohamed awad is a young man like many in egypt’s lower-middle-class
neighborhoods. the 23-year-old, who completed a diploma in industry,
earns a monthly salary of £e 175 working in a tissue production
factory in sixth of october city. he is the eldest of three brothers
and lives with his mother in the haram district. awad plans to wait
another three years before trying to get married, given unofficial
unemployment figures well above 15 percent, as well as his realization
that, once his contract expires, it may not be renewed. “the
key issue is money,” he complained. “there are no jobs
and no job security. there is nothing that helps us forward when
we need money for everything.”
he began working when he was 10 years old, and his father put money
aside to help with his anticipated marriage expenses. still, awad
knows that, following the initial matrimonial euphoria, he’ll
have to earn at least £e 400 a month – minimum –
to support a wife, and plenty more if they are to have children.
awad’s friend, 25-year-old hussein alam, is also putting off
marriage for another five or six years, during which time he hopes
to boost his current £e 150-a-month government wage. “i
wish i could marry tomorrow. but it’s the period after marriage
that’s the problem,” he said.
but even mid-range salaries are seldom enough to envisage marriage
in the short term. ibrahim el toukhy, a 31-year-old sales executive
with the french-owned accor hotel chain, brings in something in
the neighborhood of £e 1,500 monthly. nevertheless, el toukhy,
a thirty-something graduate of economics and political science,
isn’t planning on getting married anytime soon. to start a
family while maintaining his current standard of living, he said,
he must earn a salary of at least £e 3,000. “of course
i can’t afford to start a family with the income i’m getting
now. this is the problem these days.”
rules of engagement
the classic egyptian marriage process typically involves collective
consultations and extensive negotiations between the respective
families of the betrothed couple.
in all social classes, well-developed familial and social networks
serve to facilitate marriage. membership at the neighborhood social
club, or nadi, for instance, provides a perfect courting ground
for young people of similar social standing.
once a potential match is identified, the groom and the bride’s
father must mutually negotiate the terms of the marriage contract,
as well as a written timeline for complying with each clause. the
first – and generally most important – obligation for
the groom is to purchase an apartment.
for the upper classes, this is usually a non-issue. lower-income
men such as alam and awad, however, plan to live in extensions of
their parents’ homes, a common solution. such an arrangement
enables them to remain near their parents while having their own
apartments for their own families.
for those who don’t have this option, however, buying an apartment
at current market prices – even by installment – can take
years. but since most egyptian families frown upon rented apartments,
especially the furnished kind (generally considered the preserve
of rootless expats and vacationing gulf arabs), they are given little
choice.
amin el kahky, real estate administrative manager for linkdotnet’s
realty website e-dar.com, estimated that only around 20 percent
of egyptian families would accept a groom planning to rent a furnished
flat in the interim before a buying a home. “for the other
80 percent, everything must be in place before the marriage occurs,”
el kahky said.
the bridegroom’s burden
another important marriage-related expense that must be borne by
the groom’s side is the mahr, a sum of money paid to the bride’s
family for the purpose of furnishing the newlyweds’ home. going
prices for the mahr differ based on the financial status of the
families involved, but they usually start – in cairo, anyway
– at about £e 10,000, the bear minimum needed to furnish
an urban flat. sometimes, however, in lieu of the mahr, families
agree to split furniture expenses between them.
the groom is also expected to buy a shabka, or a token gift of gold
jewelry, which he presents to the bride-to-be amid the oohs and
aahs of family and friends. the bride’s family may request
a shabka worth anywhere from £e 3,000 – for a wedding
band, two bracelets and a necklace with a pendant – to more
than £e 50,000 for a high-grade diamond jewelry set.
ever pragmatic, the possibility of divorce in also considered before
the nuptial is forged. the ayma, for one, is a legal document included
in the marriage contract listing the legal possessions of the woman,
while the mu’akhar is a promise of payment to the bride in
the event that the groom divorces her. the mu’akhar generally
ranges from £e 5,000 to £e 20,000 in lower and middle
income groups, and can reach up to £e 50,000 or more in the
upper classes – or in cases where the groom has divorced previously.
families consider these two clauses as the primary authentication
of the bride’s value. following this rationale, the more money
the bride is worth in the eyes of her husband, the less likely he
is to divorce her.
still, parents of the groom often see this particular clause as
an unfair tax. and once the cost of the wedding dress, wedding party,
hairdresser and honeymoon – all of which are put on the groom’s
tab – are considered, marriage becomes, for many young men,
“a quasi- impossible option,” according to rouchdy.
meanwhile, at any point in the negotiations, disagreements between
the parties – over the size of the mahr, for example –
can threaten to derail the entire transaction. such disputes can
be mended if the couple in question is willing to fight with their
respective parents, but families often go their separate ways, only
to quickly start negotiations with another family.
“i know a marriage that was called off because of curtains,”
awad said, “and there was another that fell apart because of
an argument over plastic garbage bins and bathroom accessories.”
show me the furniture
the preparations for marriage give families the ideal opportunity
to show off. for the well-off, a wedding party at a five-star hotel
– replete with famous dancer and imported food and alcohol
– is a sign of social distinction and refinement.
those of a lower-income bracket, meanwhile, tack their prestige
to the youm el-farsh (“day of the furniture”), which occurs
about a week before the official wedding party. on this day, families
conspicuously display all the newlyweds’ furniture, often towing
it on the backs of pickups or horse-drawn carts to give the entire
neighborhood a chance to appreciate the openhandedness of the groom’s
family.
a growing number of more affluent egyptians, however, are becoming
more cynical about traditional marriage customs, likening them to
auctions rather than celebrations of mutual love. “the customs,
i think, are silly. it’s not a business deal. a lot of girls
aren’t really interested in all these things,” insisted
amira.
but at the same time, single men have complaints of their own: women
have become too materialistic; they demand nice apartments, expensive
gifts and myriad status symbols; and greed takes precedence over
decency and respect.
el toukhy, the sales executive, said if he doesn’t find a “broad-minded”
and well-educated egyptian girl, he simply “will not marry
an egyptian.” while el toukhy invested money in a piece of
land in marsa alam, on which he hopes to build a small hotel in
the budding resort community, such long-term entrepreneurial dreams
are hardly enough to satisfy the on-the-spot demands of most egyptian
families, he said.
nevertheless, most young egyptians of all classes – whether
willingly or not – continue to marry within the prescribed
cultural framework.
marrying with the times
despite the obstacles, the many garlanded wedding cars – along
with the frenzied din of the zefa, or wedding celebration, on thursday
and friday evenings – indicate that people are still tying
the knot in large numbers. and egyptians in general seem ready to
confront whatever economic realities threaten to thwart the cultural,
social and religious obligation to marry. “we’ll adapt
to whatever life throws our way,” said maged abd allah, owner
of the sun gold jewelry shop in cairo.
he should know – gold sales have fallen 50 percent in the last
year because families are loosening their shabka requirements, abd
allah explained. “families are cooperating more because the
market is so bad – but people can’t stop getting married,”
he said.
the price of gold, linked to the price of the dollar, has risen
enormously: from about £e 45 per gram at the end of 2002 to
£e 68 in mid-october of this year. “more and more families
are agreeing to buy only two rings for the bride and use the extra
money to buy something essential for the apartment instead, such
as a washing machine,” abd allah explained.
yet even as couples and their families learn to temper their traditional
demands in these days of rocketing inflation, some observers predict
that – without real economic development and more job creation
– the crisis of the marriage market will only be exacerbated
in the coming years. “the future is very negative,” rouchdy
said. “i don’t envy young people.”
despite such dark predictions, many young people are optimistic
that they might see a softening of cultural expectations when the
next generation reaches marriageable age 20 years from now. “it’s
a societal problem,” awad conceded. “in lower-income neighborhoods,
families don’t want to let go of a strict set of traditions,
even though young people can’t handle it. i’ll be more
flexible when i am a parent.”
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experts: flat-buying-related anxiety levels double on year
adding to the familial pressures that already dog the futures
of most young couples, massive increases in the price of building
materials – noticeable since january’s controlled
currency flotation – have made finishing and furnishing
an apartment much more costly.
according to ahmed mohamed, the 31-year-old owner of a workshop
in haram that sells wood to local furniture builders, modest-income
couples that could fully furnish their homes for £e
10,000 before the devaluation now must shell out an additional
£e 5,000 for the same mobilia, or furnishings. this,
he explained, is due to a 30- to 60-percent increase in the
price of wood, which is imported from places such as russia,
finland, indonesia, sweden and romania. according to mohamed,
the price of wood per meter has jumped from £e 1,000
or less before the devaluation to over £e 1,600 now.
other essential building materials, including paint, are also
imported in whole or in part. the price of painting a 100-square-meter
apartment, therefore, has jumped in price from £e 800
to £e 1,200, according to fayez said, owner of el yosr
paint store in giza.
price hikes can be felt in every room of the house. a bedroom
that would have cost £e 2,500 to furnish last year now
costs £e 4,000, while a typical middle-range entrée
family room set has leapt in price from £e 1,600 to
£e 2,500. similarly, the price of outfitting a typical
small kitchen has jumped from £e 1,000 to £e 2,000.
“preparing an apartment for marriage has become too demanding
on the young groom,” mohamed said, who noted that the
anxiety levels of his customers had visibly “doubled”
since january.
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the temptation-of-the-flesh factor
as the average age for marriage creeps upwards, young people
struggle to find ways to cope with prevailing economic and
social stresses. for lower-middle-class bachelors hussein
alam, mohamed awad and their friends, meeting in the evenings
for a shisha pipe and a cup of turkish coffee at a local coffee
shop and playing a game of backgammon helps them vent their
frustrations about work, financial trouble and the lack of
romance in their lives. “if i didn’t have my friends
to go out with, i would surely go mad,” alam said.
but camaraderie only goes so far in easing the, er, more primal
instincts. in a culture where extramarital sex is seriously
frowned upon, marriage is the only institution where people
can have sexual relations in a socially acceptable way.
the result of delaying marriage, according to american university
in cairo sociologist malak rouchdy, is that men become sexually
frustrated. “we are human. every human being has sexual
needs,” rouchdy said. “these men are already socially
and financially frustrated. when the [marriage] age is delayed
in a society that suppresses gender relations, you have to
find ways.”
some young people resort to taking part in more liberal sexual
relations, although discussion of the subject remains beyond
the pale of respectable public discourse. but in a society
that places a high value on female virginity until marriage,
many young people opt instead to forge secret urfi weddings
to consummate their “impossible love” relationships.
urfi marriages – which are reportedly prevalent among
young university graduates – are finalized without any
legal procedures or financial obligations from either party.
as can be expected, stories abound of young men leaving their
secret partners once their desires have been sated. and since
no record of the marriage exists, a woman loses her legal
marital rights and finds it difficult to prove paternity and
secure alimony payments in court.
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