Rising Dowries in Kuwait an Obstacle to Marriage
From today’s <a href="“> Arab Times
Rising dowries key problem in failed marriages – survey
KUWAIT, Jan 17, (KUNA): Kuwaiti youth oppose vehemently the extremely high dowries and wedding expenses amid an economic and social downturn in the society due to the current economic crisis, according to a recent academic survey. Dowry is always a bone of contention among the families of bride and bridegroom, said the survey, carried out by the Kuwait University.
Young men are more critical of rising dowries than girls, the study entitled “Social Value of Dowries in Kuwaiti Society”, showed. It highlighted the reality of dowries in Kuwait and their relative significance and social impacts, calling for taking into consideration gender differences and social and cultural changes. The survey involved a sample of 700 men and women aged between 20 and 56 from different areas in the six Kuwaiti governorates. It showed that 78 percent of the sample viewed dowries as exorbitantly high, 82.4 percent considered dowry as the key problem in surging wedding expenses, while 28.1 percent believed that Kuwaiti girls pay too much heed to dowry. The respondents are mostly dissatisfied with dowries, with 85.7 percent of the sampled men and 70 percent of the sampled women believing that dowries are too high.
Sometimes, it is the dowry which determines whether marriage can be completed due to familial hard-mindedness and intransigence, it said. The survey attributed surging dowries to women’s employment, education, lack of acquaintance and girls’ young age. It indicated common gender social awareness of social reflections of uncontrollably rising dowries on the entire Kuwaiti society. For instance, young men are now reluctant to marry Kuwaiti girls, resorting to non-Kuwaiti females, spinsterhood is growing and secret and unofficial marriage cases are mounting, it said. In conclusion, the survey recommended that the culture of moderation, especially regarding dowries, should be disseminated pursuant to the Islamic Sharia’ or Law in bid to alleviate the negative social effects of mounting dowries in the Kuwaiti society.
Young Kuwaiti men have told me that Kuwaiti women “cost too much”, that they would rather marry a hard-working Philipina girl, or a western woman, who will work and help with household expenses, than to borrow the money required to support a Kuwaiti woman.
A young Kuwaiti woman told me it is a growing problem for them, too, as they find themselves facing a dwindling pool of eligible bachelors, and that while the men are supposed to be able to support them in a style the same as they are supported by their father’s household, it doesn’t take into account that their fathers also did not always have so much money. It seems to be that both sexes have a clear idea of what the obstacles and problems are, but no one seems to know what to do about it.
Year of the Ox Starts 26 January!
(The US Postal Service has issued a Year of the Ox postal stamp, above)
To our great surprise, there are several very good Chinese restaurants in Kuwait – if you don’t think so, check out the number of Chinese people eating in a place, and eat what they eat. Several Chinese restaurants in Kuwait even have honest-to-God Chinese cooks!
Chinese New Year’s is a great excuse for a party, and wearing your favorite red dress. 🙂 It’s almost here – January 26th.
Chinese New Year
The Year of the Ox
by Holly Hartman
from InfoPlease website on Chinese New Year
4707 (or 2009) is the year of the ox
Chinese New Year is the longest and most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. The Chinese year 4707 begins on Jan. 26, 2009.
Chinese months are reckoned by the lunar calendar, with each month beginning on the darkest day. New Year festivities traditionally start on the first day of the month and continue until the fifteenth, when the moon is brightest. In China, people may take weeks of holiday from work to prepare for and celebrate the New Year.
An Obstinate Year
Legend has it that in ancient times, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal’s year would have some of that animal’s personality. Those born in ox years tend to be painters, engineers, and architects. They are stable, fearless, obstinate, hard-working and friendly. Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Walt Disney, and Anthony Hopkins were all born in the year of the ox.
Fireworks and Family Feasts
At Chinese New Year celebrations people wear red clothes, decorate with poems on red paper, and give children “lucky money” in red envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck. The fireworks that shower the festivities are rooted in a similar ancient custom. Long ago, people in China lit bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would frighten evil spirits.
The Lantern Festival
In China, the New Year is a time of family reunion. Family members gather at each other’s homes for visits and shared meals, most significantly a feast on New Year’s Eve. In the United States, however, many early Chinese immigrants arrived without their families, and found a sense of community through neighborhood associations instead. Today, many Chinese-American neighborhood associations host banquets and other New Year events.
The lantern festival is held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon.
In many areas the highlight of the lantern festival is the dragon dance. The dragon—which might stretch a hundred feet long—is typically made of silk, paper, and bamboo. Traditionally the dragon is held aloft by young men who dance as they guide the colorful beast through the streets. In the United States, where the New Year is celebrated with a shortened schedule, the dragon dance always takes place on a weekend. In addition, many Chinese-American communities have added American parade elements such as marching bands and floats.
We heard in church a couple weeks ago that the Chinese labor force is the fastest growing segment of the expat labor force in Kuwait, did you know that? The come in, they focus, they work hard, they produce what they have promised and then – they go back to China. They bid competitively on the contracts, they speak English fairly well, and they get the job done, with none of this human rights baggage that many of the Western countries carry around. Nope. No problem, says the Chinese embassy.
Days of January Glory
“Come! Come look! It is a gorgeous sunrise!” AdventureMan calls as I step out of the shower, drying my hair. It is a rare day when he spots the sunrise instead of me, and he is right, it is a beautiful sunrise – the clouds give it depth and dimension.
Although we both have full days ahead, we take a moment to appreciate the sunrise together. Then, off in our separate directions, sometimes shouting from various parts of the house as we are getting ready but still trying to communicate before we go our separate ways.
The Qatteri Cat has found a place to enjoy the morning sunshine. It still feels cold this morning – and it is:
It is getting seriously warmer starting tomorrow, and I wonder if today will be the last real sweater day. I found this last week, it was constantly shifting from jacket and scarf and sweater to sweater and scarf, to sweater, and then back depending on whether we were in the car (hot hot hot) or walking where there was a stiff breeze or shade (jacket, scarf and sweater) or whether we were having a cup of coffee in the peak of the afternoon sitting outside in the sunshine (scarf and sweater). Life has become very fiddly with all this clothing.
Already, we are preparing for the warmer temperatures around the corner – February is paradise in Kuwait, with mild temperatures and sunshine every day.
Now – on! On! We have a busy day and need to get going! Have a great day, Kuwait!
Fighting Pornography
For the last week, I have been beset by some of the filthiest spam I have seen in a long time. Most of it goes straight to spam, thanks to WordPress’s effective filters, but occasionally, one passes. I think there is a major effort going on to test the filters and see what can get through. It puts pressure on me to check the blog frequently and eliminate anything I see that is inappropriate.
Most of this spam takes you to pornographic sites. I hate porn. It degrades those who indulge. It gives people an unrealistic idea of what sex is all about. It infects normal relations with unrealistic images and expectations. And those images are engraved on your brain, spoiling what is good and beautiful, smearing it with what you have taken in on those sleazy websites.
I have said it before and I will say it again – those women and men are PAID. They are doing those things because they were PAID. The animals are doing it because they are forced – as are some of the humans. It is like prostitution – no, yours is NOT the biggest they have ever seen, they are saying that because you are PAYING them.
That is fantasy. If you get your head straight, reality is 100 times better than this degradation can ever be.
You have a choice. Please choose NOT to support these websites, which are trying to appeal to the very weakest parts of your character. These websites are not just a crime against women and children – they are a weapon against the goodness of your own character.
I am now spraying this blog against filth. You are warned.
Ok To Marry 10 Year Old Girls – Saudi Arabia
This is just sad. I’m sorry, a ten year old girl is that – a girl. Any father knows that. She is precious and innocent, and still playing dolls and make believe. Few girls are even menstruating at 10. No girl, at 10, has the emotional and physical maturity to enter into a marriage. And this is the SENIOR Saudi Arabian cleric speaking? I’m sorry, this makes me sick to my stomach. It’s just wrong.
You don’t leave a ten year old alone – you get a babysitter. A ten year old belongs in school, a ten year old belongs with her mother.
This is from today’s Al Watan, right on the front page.
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia”s most senior cleric was quoted Wednesday as saying it is permissible for 10ـyearـold girls to marry and those who think they’re too young are doing the girls an injustice.
The mufti”s comments showed the conservative clergy’s opposition to a drive by Saudi rights groups, including government ones, to define the age of marriage and put an end to the phenomenon of child marriages.
“It is wrong to say it’s not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger,” Sheik AbdulـAziz AlـSheikh, the country”s grand mufti, was quoted as saying.
“A female who is 10 or 12 is marriageable and those who think she’s too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,” he said during a Monday lecture, according to the panـArab AlـHayat newspaper.
AlـSheikh”s comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.
Though the mufti’s pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.
On Sunday, the governmentـrun Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an “inhumane violation” and rob children of their rights.
The commission’s statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eightـyearـold girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.
Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.
Responding to a question about parents who force their underage daughters to marry, the mufti said: “We hear a lot about the marriage of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law has not brought injustice to women.”
The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a “bad path.”
“Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12,” said AlـSheikh, according to AlـHayat.
There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year. And it’s also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of media outlets and easy access to the Internet.
Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or as a result of longـstanding custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships. ـAP
Last updated on Thursday 15/1/2009
I have a friend who says the mufti needs to come back in his next life as a young girl in Saudi Arabia. I think it might give his thought processes some clarity.
Freej Soeleh
“You’re going to LOVE this place!” AdventureMan crowed from two continents and an ocean away. Our Kuwaiti friends’ son had just taken him and his father to eat in this restaurant, and it was a great experience.
He was right. A couple months later, he took me there, and I loved it. It was a different experience for him, too, when he went with me, because with me, he could sit upstairs in the family section. 🙂
You would never guess a place so full of homages to Kuwaiti tradition would be next door neighbors to the Marina Mall. From some of the cabinets, you look directly over to the mall.
They make their own sweets, and very fine sweets they are. His huge pot is entirely copper, and he makes wonderful candies, which you can buy and take with you, and use for gifts – made in Kuwait!
Pardon my indelicacy, but I love thoughtful decoration. This is the ladies room, and I am crazy about their huge bowl sinks – a wave to the past with the traditional sand and stone colors and materials:
We have all the privacy in the world, although we are surrounded by families. By the way, this is not a great place for an intimate, romantic dinner. Children are everywhere, clearly welcome, and bouncing off the walls. It is noisy. (We don’t mind.) When you want a waiter, you press the call button on the wall next to the little windows, which open and close.
At night – OK, this is hokey, but the truth is, I love it – they have a ceiling full of “stars”:
One thing we really love is that you can get Kuwaiti foods here. We love trying different things. One of our favorites is the Fish at the Bottom of the Pot:
Very shortly, pre-food food arrives – the beignets are light and sweet and irresistible:
As you can see, the prices are reasonable:
We have never ordered the camel milk:
To get to the Freej Soeleh coming south on Gulf Road, turn in where you see that big old Kuwaiti Style hotel, I think it is the Al-Ghanim, and then take the first right onto what my friends call Salmiyya High Street. You take the last right going toward the Marina Mall just before the mall, which will take you right into a parking area. If you look on your right, you will see the Freej Soeleh.
If you are coming South on Gulf Road, take the exit that goes in front of Marina Mall and turn right just past the valet entrance to the Mall. You will see a parking lot – and the Freej Soeleh – on your left.
You can take the elevator up to the second floor, if you are a family. If you are bachelors, you can take the escalator up to the first floor. The food is good in either place. The family section is more colorful.
If you go early – like noon for lunch, six-thirty/seven for dinner – you will walk right in. If you go later, when the Kuwaiti families stream in, you may have to wait, but they have a great waiting area, and you can watch the caramel man make candy.
Please, my western friends, if you go, dress modestly. This is a family place; most women are in abayas. I have never seen another western family here, but then we are all in cabinets, so that’s not such a surprise. It is a gem of an adventure in Kuwait.
I apologize that there are no photos of the main courses. There is always SO MUCH food. It comes, there is a frantic trying to organize the table so it has enough room for everything, and it all smells so good! You tend to just dive in.
The one jarring element is that when you are having appetizers, the tabbouleh, the muttabel, the hummus, they bring a plastic bag of bread on a plate. . . I guess I get spoiled down at the Mubarakiyya market, where the bread is always freshly made . . . I wish they had fresh hot bread, but the food itself is GOOD.
Kuwait Moonlight Magic
I should have guessed when I saw all the fishing boats gathering last night as the sun went down. As the day went all pink and lavender, and then deeper purple, you could see their lights bobbing not too far off shore.
Minutes later I cam back and was stunned – the moon was up, full and glimmering over the Gulf. It was magical.
“AdventureMan! Come look!” I called, because it is a great sorrow in our lives that many a full moon we have been in different cities. I don’t know why it matters to us, but it does. He will call me and say “there is a full moon tonight in Djibuti and we are not together!” or I will SMS him saying “there is a full moon tonight in Seattle, where are you?” There are times he will say “At least we are both on the same continent” or “At least we are both in the same time zone!” but it is still sad that we are not together. It matters to us, so to watch this great bright silver orb rise over the waters was a moment to be treasured.
There were wisps of clouds in the sky, so the moon is not sharp edged, but a little blobby. Nevertheless, it is a full moon and we are together. A good night to celebrate.
Cat Nap
I had a lot going on today, including an event I need to prepare for tomorrow. As I was settling down to read a lot of material, I felt a little cold, and put on my heavy robe. Then the Qatteri Cat heard me and came in and snuggled up close and went to sleep. His slow, regular breathing, and his little cat-sleeping noises had its effect on me, too, and the next thing I knew, I was also sound asleep.
AdventureMan said “I hate to wake you, but I’m hungry” and I was glad he did. We went out for a quick bite which turned out to be not so quick, and I am growing increasingly uncomfortable at how unprepared I am going to be when he says “don’t you remember college? Isn’t there someplace on the internet you can go and get some ideas to put this together quickly?” and it’s like a lightbulb going on – oh yeh! There is this wonderful new way to gather information in a hurry. I can get other people’s ideas . . .
We used to use something called Cliff Notes, you could buy them in any university bookstore to fill in if you didn’t have time to read the book, or to guide you if you read it and didn’t understand it.
Now I am off to find the current day equivalent, to crib some notes off the internet since I am now WAAAYYY behind the curve.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Good morning, Kuwait!
It wasn’t supposed to be this cold this morning! I think it must have been another freezing night last night, but between extra blankets and the Qatteri Cat, we slept just fine. We were in Al Ghanim last night, and saw a big sale going on – space heaters! Everyone was out buying heat.
It is going to be another glorious day in Kuwait! Dress warmly, get out there and enjoy your Friday!
We watched Valkyrie and my husband said it stayed very close to the historical events. It wasn’t very exciting, or moving, to me. I think I might’ve changed the ending. 😉 The funniest moment in the film was where AdventureMan said “I think that coughing is coming from someone in the audience, not from the film” and from time to time, we saw a head pop up in the lower left hand corner.
Sunrise Epiphany
It is a golden, glorious sunrise this morning, a little chop on the water, not so much as to even make a whitecap, just a ruffle.
It is still COLD. The temperatures for the rest of the week show a slow, gradual warming of both the maximum and minimum temperatures. We may have just seen the worst of winter.
I have pulled out my toastiest Land’s End fleece robe, bought when I lived in a tiny German farm village, where temperatures got low and stayed low. Because my apartment there had in-the-floor heating, we were always too hot! Maybe once a year, in Kuwait, I pull it out to keep me warm. This was the morning. Although it seems like it is getting warmer, the cold seeps into my building through the concrete walls and marble floors, a little colder every day.
The Qatteri Cat has decided not to get up quite yet. “It is too cold,” he complains, as he grabs his baby and goes back to bed.
Dress warmly, and get out to enjoy another glorious day in Kuwait. 🙂
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 