For Young Libyans, Old-Style Marriage Is a Dream Too Far
Two brothers celebrate their weddings at a hall in Tripoli. Libya's marriage rate is falling as unemployment and scarce housing undercut the traditional expectation that a young man will provide his bride with a house and a large dowry.
(By Nora Younis For The Washington Post)
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Thirty-one-year-old Abdel Baset al-Assady dreams of getting married in the mountains, where Arabian horses would paw the air and prance in rhythm with his wedding drums.
Assady dreams of getting married in the city. His proud family would stream into the home of his bride bearing trays of gold for her.
But mostly, Assady just dreams of getting married.
As it is, the single young Libyan man lives at home in the capital, Tripoli. He shares six whitewashed rooms with his mother, father, and five brothers and sisters. His siblings are all underemployed, unmarried and restless -- like him.
"I want to get married now, and I believe this is the right time in my life," said Assady, who shows tiny white teeth when he smiles and tucks his head down when he laughs. "But I have to wait for cash, and marriage needs a sustainable job."
Custom and changing economies are frustrating millions of young people in Libya, Egypt and other less prosperous parts of the Arab world. The oil wealth gurgling into Libya with the lifting of international sanctions has yet to trickle down to its people. With few prospects of advancement, many of the young are finding marriage a luxury they can't afford.
Libyan custom demands that young men provide their brides with a home and a hefty dowry. But with increasing urbanization, 90 percent of Libya's 6 million people now live in cities, where housing is cramped and scarce.
Unemployment, estimated by the World Bank at 30 percent, hits the North African country's young people hardest. Few can easily afford the gold, furnishings and other dowry goods expected of young men.
Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's government and his family provide sporadic help, with officials offering dowries and promises of housing.
In Tripoli, 30-year-old Aisha Mosbah ar Homa ran a finger down her thin gold bracelets, showing off the simpler pieces of her dowry. A foundation run by Gaddafi's oldest daughter, Aisha, gave Homa the bangles, along with an apartment and everything else Homa needed to marry, down to cooking oil to make the rice for the wedding guests.
"I was in love with my cousin, and he loved me, for 16 years," Homa said. "But his financial condition was very limited. Aisha's foundation saved me from a black hell."
The charity helps individual couples to marry and runs mass weddings once a year in a different part of the country, said Ahmed Ali Kajman, the charity's administrator. Last year, it helped 200 couples in the rural west.
