“It felt less like getting engaged to be married and more like I was about to buy a refrigerator,” said 30-year-old Mohammad Abdel Rahman sarcastically to one of his friends about his proposal to his girlfriend. Her father asked for a wedding ring worth 1000 Egyptian pounds (US $113) and 100 grams of gold as a dowry. But Abdel Rahman refused her father’s exaggerated demands.
“Staying single is better,” says 25-year-old Hussam Zidane, a friend of Abdem Rahman’s.
Cancel the wedding ring
“It felt less like getting engaged to be married and more like I was about to buy a refrigerator,” said 30-year-old Mohammad Abdel Rahman sarcastically to one of his friends about his proposal to his girlfriend. Her father asked for a wedding ring worth 1000 Egyptian pounds (US $113) and 100 grams of gold as a dowry. But Abdel Rahman refused her father’s exaggerated demands.
“Staying single is better,” says 25-year-old Hussam Zidane, a friend of Abdem Rahman’s.
Cancel the wedding ring
Even women are rejecting the tradition of dowries. Taqwa Mohammad launched an online campaign entitled: ‘Yes to canceling the wedding rings’. “I saw and heard about cases where marriage projects get postponed or canceled because many young men cannot afford to buy expensive wedding rings,” says Taqwa. “The wedding ring is just an accessory for show and bragging, and it’s better if the money is spent on providing the necessities of life such as furnishing the couple’s new apartment.”
The campaign has found many supporters. “Wedding rings are just unnecessary expenses and they prevent a lot of young men from proposing while at the university because they need 20 thousand pounds to get engaged,” says Sama Hussein, a supporter of Taqwa’s campaign. “If the cost is only about five thousand pounds, it will save many love stories from failure and from the feeling that the young man is unable to marry the girl he loves and save the bride from being forced to marry the first person who was able to pay for a good ring. At the end of the day, everything she owns will be his property and the young man will highly appreciate it if his ‘father-in-law’ relives him from the ring.”
Dowries have their reasons
Radwa Al-Baz says there are legitimate reasons for expensive wedding rings. “What comes easily goes easily,” she says. “Without a ring, it would be easy for the groom to leave the bride at any time because he won’t have to pay anything back.”
Mostapha Mohammad, another supporter of dowries says: “God Almighty says ‘And give the women their dowry as a duty’ and this means a dowry is obligatory, but the amount is still debatable among different scholars. Women are highly valued in our society and in our religion, and I personally reject the idea of completely cancelling dowry,” explains Mohammad.
“Dowry should not be cancelled because it is a woman’s right and humans are betrayers by nature,” says Hamada Tamer who is also against cancellation “but one should only provide what he can afford. If someone does not have anything, he should write in the marriage contract a certain amount of money that he would pay, and if someone is able to pay a symbolic amount, he should pay it and write down the remaining amount just to ensure the right of his bride.”
Sharia calls for reduced dowry
Ali Jumaa, former Mufti of Egypt says “customs stipulate that the wedding ring is a part of the dowry because people agree to it before the marriage. So, wedding rings are not gifts, but part of the dowry, now that breaking off the engagement can be done by both, the man and the woman, and the wedding ring will be returned to the fiancé whether the separation is because of him or his fiancée.”
Islamic preacher, Taha Amara agrees with Jumaa that the wedding ring serves as the main dowry in Egypt. He says that rings are considered as the groom’s legal right explaining that it is paid by the groom in return for obtaining something that others can’t obtain. Amara added that Sharia law calls for reduced dowry and considers a reduced dowry as the wife’s righteousness and the marriage blessing, adding that Prophet Mohamed says: “the most blessed women are those with the lowest dowry”.
Social impact
Sociologists agree with religious scholars that the dowry should be reduced. The Head of Sociology department in Fayoum University, Dr. Abdel Hameed Zaid says that the wedding ring in Sharia is not a legal part of the marriage. He explains that the only requirement is that the groom should be devout, and the current practices are just inherited traditions that are against Sharia. He says these are negatively affecting young men who are unable to afford the ring, so the number of single men and women are increasing especially among higher education graduates. As a result, common law marriages and “illegitimate” relationships are increasing.
Abu Zaid says that marriage has two goals: giving birth to children and raising them in line with community rules. Thus, requesting high dowries and expensive wedding rings would disrupt the most important functions of marriage. He says that the main reason behind such requests is to show off, without considering the difficult conditions of life, while some young men work hard only to provide an acceptable wedding ring and show that they are capable.
Abu Zaid says that the media coverage of this issue is a very good way to solve it because no government laws can be issued to cancel dowries. Moreover, he thinks this phenomenon is beginning to disappear in larger cities where the concept of extended families does not exist.
