Gold hikes dim marriage lustre in Egypt

[DJKeefy]

Campaign calling on girls’ families to reconsider their demand for gold marriage gifts launched.

Nader Bakr, a pharmacist, had to shelve his plan to propose to a girl in his local neighbourhood in Cairo due to an unprecedented surge in prices of gold in recent weeks.

“I managed to save around 15,000 pounds to buy the shabka [a gold engagement gift] and offer it to the girl whom I decided to marry,” starts the 27-year-old man.

“But much to my back luck, the gold price last week reached 460 pounds per gram, an increase that means my savings can only buy 30 grams. The family of the girl insists that the shabka for her should not be less than 50 grams,” he adds.

“There was no other option than postponing the engagement party and the marriage plan until I can save enough money to buy the required gold amount. I am afraid that by the time I have collected this money, prices of gold will have further gone up,” Bakr says despairingly.

In recent weeks, prices of several items, including gold, have increased in Egypt due to an all-time low of the local pound against the dollar on the thriving black market.

Egypt has been facing an acute shortage in foreign currency revenues blamed on the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising. A team from the International Monetary Fund is currently in Egypt for talks on supporting its troubled economy with a 12-billion-dollar loan programme over three years.

The spike in gold prices has hit in summer, traditionally a peak season for engagement and wedding ceremonies in Egypt. Prices of the precious metal, a source of social pride and a major saving pool, have increased by more than 70 per cent in the past three years.

Online activists have launched several campaigns calling on girls’ families to reconsider their demand for gold marriage gifts.

“The time has come for our people to give up traditions that oblige young men to buy an expensive shabka for their fiancees,” says Hossam Abdul Hadi, a member of a campaign called “No to Gold”.

“Our campaign is aimed at alleviating the burden on young people and reducing the costs of marriage,” he adds. “One proposal is that families of the bride and the groom agree to register the value of the shabka in the marriage contract as being an entitlement of the girl, but without compelling the groom to buy it before engagement or marriage.”

Another option, according to Abdul Hadi who is a 28-year-old unmarried engineer, is to replace gold with silver in marriage gifts.

Many girls have enthusiastically welcomed the anti-gold campaigns.

“Neither a big gold gift nor expensive furniture guarantees a happy marriage,” says Nehal Fekry, a female student in business administration.

“What matters most is that both partners to the marriage share the same understanding and outlook on life,” adds the 21-year-old girl. In her view, the engagement gift is “something symbolic that can be silver or even wood.”

Nehal, however, believes that deeply rooted community traditions are a major obstacle.

“Despite the horrible rise in gold prices, some families, especially in the countryside, demand the youth proposing to their girls to buy large amounts of gold that may exceed 100 grams,” she says. “This places a burden on men and makes it difficult for them to get married while they are still young.”

Nearly 9 million Egyptians at the age of 33, half of them women, are not married, according to 2011 official figures.

The problem is believed to have worsened due to the country’s economic woes since the 2011 revolt. Unemployment rates in Egypt reached 12.8 per cent in 2015, according to official figures.

In an attempt to reduce costs of the gold marriage gifts, jewellery shops in Egypt have recently featured items of low gold carats that sell at inexpensive prices.

“This can be an alternative to the other expensive gold carats,” said Nadi Najuib, who heads the goldsmiths section at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce.

“However, demand for the low-gold carats is very weak because Egyptians favour gold items of the [more expensive] 18 and 21 carats,” Najuib told private newspaper Al Watan.

“Changing traditions related to gold marriage gifts requires public awareness campaigns.”


Source: http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/egypt/gol ... -1.1871791

[Major Thom]

So marriage depends on Gold does it and nothing else! Seems like the word priority comes along way down the wedding list, along with Love! Tradition or no tradition, there should be far more priorities than gold before getting married.

[newcastle]

Maybe we in the West overemphasize the importance of love ("whatever that is" as Prince Charles famously said!)

The Egyptian custom of (more or less) arranged marriages, often to someone you barely know "as a person", has worked well enough for centuries.

As well as the "gold tradition", the custom of having a fully equipped home and then having an expensive party has often struck me as a poor use of limited resources.

One of the consequences is a preponderance of unmarried, testosterone-fueled, males in their 20's and 30's....with attendant social problems (or benefits, if you're a lonely tourist looking for action )

But, the differing customs is one of the attractions of living in a foreign land...and you need to accept the strange, along with the , at times, depressing........or you won't live happily here (will you, MT? )

[Dusak]

The one thing that struck me about the post is the term, ''the girl whom I decided to marry.'' Sounds more like a bloke going to a cattle auction and pointing to a particular heifer, ''I'll have that one.''

[newcastle]

To some extent it is.

The bargaining is done with the girl's family. Theoretically, she has a right of veto

It's changing in the big cities but a village girl is most likely to end up with the most suitable cousin.

[Major Thom]

Newc. I don't care what the bloody hell they do here regarding this subject, I came here with my wife to retire and not get involved in others lives, I am prepared to help whenI can, but do not get involved I would never go to another wedding. But sorry if Gold is the be all and end all its a sorry state of affairs. Many have sold their gold in the past three years to feed their families anyway, isn't it a pity some others thought the same way?

[Major Thom]

Bargaining, what is it all about sounds like shopping in a sook to me!

[Bearded Brian]

At least with the wedding having to be delayed the next stage (having more mouths to feed or as some of you call them babies) is also delayed - a good form of contraception - I say increase the price of gold fourfold.

[Dusak]

Although I'm keeping out of a situation developing withing my friends family concerning a new engagement, I see it as a cattle auction. One very young thoroughbred verses an older donkey. It will be interesting to see which one will eventually cross the finishing line first.

[newcastle]

I'm sure the bride will be happy with either a donkey or a stallion

[Major Thom]

You are naughty Newc. maybe you should suggest this to European Golden Boy hunters.....

[Hafiz]

It all sounds fantastic - the European west is all about choice and love and the dreadful islamic east is the opposite. Really! Is life so black and white? Ignoring, for one moment that new-style full choice, highly educated Western love matches fail to an astronomical degree, and ignoring all the stats that people whose Western marriage have failed then jump back into a second marriage that fails for the same reason. How many of us know these people?


Pot and black. The West giving marriage/relationship advice to the East. Who is living in the real world?

On a personal note marriage was, in part, about combining farms in 1980's Australia. The most extraordinary marriages were contracted all of which, to my certain knowledge, have succeeded (at least survived) under detailed financial, estate planning and legal advice. Their children are no worse than the feckless Islington romantics. And they have the benefit of not having three step fathers.

[newcastle]

It all sounds fantastic - the European west is all about choice and love and the dreadful islamic east is the opposite. Really! Is life so black and white? Ignoring, for one moment that new-style full choice, highly educated Western love matches fail to an astronomical degree, and ignoring all the stats that people whose Western marriage have failed then jump back into a second marriage that fails for the same reason. How many of us know these people?


Pot and black. The West giving marriage/relationship advice to the East. Who is living in the real world?

On a personal note marriage was, in part, about combining farms in 1980's Australia. The most extraordinary marriages were contracted all of which, to my certain knowledge, have succeeded (at least survived) under detailed financial, estate planning and legal advice. Their children are no worse than the feckless Islington romantics. And they have the benefit of not having three step fathers.

Whoaaa!! Not guilty , your honour! (read my earlier post)

Each to their own I say. I believe Egyptian divorce rates are a little higher than, say Europe....but then I imagine far more Egyptians (i.e.100%!) actually GET married. I don't suppose European partner swapping features in the statistics.

The article was about the gold tradition....which IS a problem. Ask any young Egyptian male.

[Hafiz]

Newcastle - probably not entirely incorrect. My point was more general - gold costs and its links to marriage are not the major issue limiting marriage in Egypt. As you well know marriage in Egypt required, at least for the non-poor that a lot, house, furnishings etc be provided up front. You need to have organized a lot of chattels and assets before you can claim to be ready for marriage. All this requires money - yours or your family - up front - and in a society does not have many jobs or consumer finance.

Egypt's current problem , which is not about gold, but about lack of jobs, is similar to that of the mid to late Victorian English period where there was a middle class marriage crisis because the social and financial requirements were such that many men were not 'able' to afford to marry. The average age of marriage ballooned and London was full of men in their 20's with no regularized sexual outlet. The negative consequences were obvious. Fast forward, modern Egyptian society has quite fixed and inflexible views about the minimum of what you need to 'have' in order to marry. Many do not have this. If you don't have that cash or assets you don't get married. If you don't get married and you are hanging around - what happens?

I'm too lazy, you have more time but, I would guess that there is a direct relationship between marriage ages and financial capacity in Egypt. That is, as Egypt gets poorer, marriage is delayed for many until men can assemble the money for married life. Its my guess that Egypt has lots of 20's men who can't marry for financial reasons and this can not be good from a whole lot of points of view. Its probable that this group is large and growing.

The gold thing is just a proxy for all the other objects you have to possess to enter into a respectable marriage.

I'd forgotten an obvious and perverse benefit, for some, in all of this. Lots of available men. Even some Scots might be able to benefit from others adversity.

Egypt needs millions of unmarried men like it needs a hole in the head but it requires jobs and fixed assets 'before' you can marry. Maybe things will change and Egyptians will marry on the never-never of consumer finance, as in the west - probably not. If average age of marriage continues to be delayed, and there continues to be an absolute taboo on sex outside marriage, anger and sexual frustration will add to the already sour Egyptian soup.

[BENNU]

I'd forgotten an obvious and perverse benefit, for some, in all of this. Lots of available men.

Where?

[newcastle]

Hafiz.......You really would do well to read a) the article and b) subsequent posts before putting finger to keyboard.

Unless you derive some perverse pleasure in simply repeating the contents of the article or regurgitating what others, me in particular, have subsequently posted.

[newcastle]

I'd forgotten an obvious and perverse benefit, for some, in all of this. Lots of available men.

Where?

Available in the "technical" sense BENNU........male, over the age of 16, with a pulse and currently unencumbered by four wives.....everywhere!

Available in the "desirable, husband-material" sense?.....well, I expect you know the answer to that

[BENNU]

I'd forgotten an obvious and perverse benefit, for some, in all of this. Lots of available men.

Where?

Available in the "technical" sense BENNU........male, over the age of 16, with a pulse and currently unencumbered by four wives.....everywhere!

In the "desirable, husband-material" sense?.....well, I expect you know the answer to that

Those who are available to me are married, unless it really is true that they are all divorced. I have known of many young men who have struggled for years, trying to save up to get married and it is a serious problem. They have not been available, but had to wait until the late twenties to get married.

[newcastle]

Presumably gold, or home & chattels, is not the issue in your case

If you're prepared to be a co-wife, I imagine there's a reasonable supply of eligible men ( financially secure; not too old)..

If you want an unmarried , financially secure one....they're rarer than hen's teeth. Widowers are likely to be ancient

And being a female breadwinner....well, that doesn't usually work out too well.