Mass weddings help ease financial strains

A mass wedding involving 800 brides and grooms tying the knot in Thamar province, 100 km south of the Yemeni capital, Sana, was recently held to assist families who could not afford the huge cost of a traditional wedding. "This is a very important event as it really facilitates the cost of the wedding and makes it easy for young men and women to get married, otherwise they would not be able to afford it alone," Abdulwahab al-Dorah, Thamar Provincial Governor, told IRIN. He added that his governorate organised such events with help from NGOs, after identifying that it was too much of a burden on impoverished local people in the district. "We are now planning to set up a special fund for facilitating marriages in the governorate," he added. The cost of weddings has risen, particularly in big cities, where poor people try and keep up with the wealthy by trying to offer the best for their loved ones when organising the big day. Recently people have started to hold weddings at large venues, which are very expensive when providing a full meal and drinks for hundreds of guests. This has become a cultural norm, but many simply cannot afford the expense. This particular wedding was held in the grounds of a local school in the al-Hadda district of the province and organised by a local NGO called the al-Saleh Social Foundation for Development (SSFD). An estimated 42 percent of the country's 20 million inhabitants live below the poverty line, according to UN statistics. In addition, a recent World Bank report cited that the country's GDP growth slowed from 4.1 percent in 2001 to an estimated 2.5 percent last year. The celebrations took place at a minimum cost but the atmosphere was worth a million dollars, according to those who tied the knot. All the brides and their grooms wore traditional colourful wedding attire decorated with fresh flowers. A sea of colour could be seen across the school grounds as 800 couples and their family members converged for the Islamic ceremony. In order to cater for thousands of people at the wedding, some 120 bulls were slaughtered to be served with traditional Yemeni rice and vegetables. The cost of a wedding varies from one city to another in Yemen but is cheaper in rural areas where the income is generally lower. Once the families of the couples agree on the marriage, according to Muslim culture in Yemen, the father of the bride may ask for a dowry of 300,000 Yemeni rials (YR), (US $1,650), excluding the expense of the marriage ceremony. The bride may also then expect the groom to pay the cost of the wedding in some cases. The size of the dowry differs between families but can be as high as $6,000. Bridegroom, Mohammed Ali told IRIN that his marriage would cost him approximately $8,000, which had to be paid to his future wife’s family, along with another $2,200 for the wedding celebration party. Some happy couples said they probably would not have been able to marry yet if it wasn't for the mass wedding. "It [would] cost me almost 500,000 YR [$2,751] to have an individual wedding party, but here I have to spend only 100,000 YR [$550]. You can see the difference," Ali told IRIN at his wedding. The huge financial strain prompted some NGOs to start the mass weddings in the mid 1990s. The idea has quickly grown in popularity because of increasing poverty. The Yemeni government is alarmed by the problem of overspending on wedding parties and President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier last year advised the people to get "rid of these bad habits that accompany weddings".