Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Finally Women Should Pay the Price

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Finally Women Should Pay the Price

Few days ago, when I was checking files in my hard disk, suddenly, I opened a video clip which a friend gave a year ago but I still had not watch that. It was a clip of Herati young women who was burned by acid by her husband's family. While tears flowing down her eyes, she was telling her heart wrenching story and revealing her skin-bared arms.

Her burned neck looked much more like rotten meat and obviously only her beautiful face remained unharmed. Her only guilt was that her brother got married for the second time.

This is a kind of tradition across the country, families who generally cannot afford the rising marriage expenses and are unable to pay Shirbaha, they agree to marry their daughters to one another. In such marriages, the family of groom agrees to wed a girl (the girl can be the daughter of householder or his sister whom generally he affords the so-called alimony) to bride's family, which is indeed an exchange of girls for girls.

Noteworthy, there are three kinds of expenses that a groom's family should afford: 1) dowry (Mahriah), 2) Shir Baha, and 3) marriage ceremony expenses. However, the first and second kinds of expenses are two different things but dowry is used for both.

In Islamic jurisprudence, dowry (Mahriah) is the money that nobody can claim except the bride. That is the property of the women and her closest relatives, like father and brother. It is also the property that a woman can ask any time and husband is compelled to pay. The woman can ask the dowry at the very time of conjugal vow, when the religious scholar after asking both bride and groom of their consent for marriage and reading some Arabic sentences which also denote on the bilateral agreement of entering into a couple's life announces them as husband and wife.

The dowry is something compulsory and the husband cannot avoid paying. Without a dowry, taking marriage vow is also against Shariah law. There must be something determined as dowry. Additionally, the dowry is not something fixed. The amount differs with the passage of time and family to family. In Shariah, it is highly advised that the amount should not be high.

And there are various quotations, Hadith, from Prophet and his followers about those girls who claim for small amount as her dowry. But meanwhile it should be noticed that the amount is not fixed and nobody has the right to force a girl to accept the amount some other suggests.

There are girls who just ask for version of holy Quran as dowry which can be found in only few hundred Afghanis, less than $5 US dollar. Seeing also girls who asked for 200,000 thousand Afghanis ($4000 US). Another example, a documentary film taped from women prison in Kabul in which a girl asked for 1,500,000 Afghanis ($30,000 US).

But of course these are exceptional cases. One prevalent reason for asking high amount as dowry is lack of trust on couple's life. Some worry that their marital life would not last long and they will end to divorce. The higher amount is indeed a kind of insurance because till the groom does not pay dowry, he cannot divorce her. Or if she gets divorced the amount can enable her to live a life independently at least for period.

But in Afghanistan, the law on dowry is not followed much. Women and men are not aware of their religious conjugal rights and responsibilities. In rural areas, women are indeed deprived of their rights to determine their dowry and it is generally set by elders or girls accept the amount advised by her family or her husband's family. Some husbands whenever decides to divorce their wife forces them to forgive their dowry.

But Afghan rural women prefer to tolerate all problems but do not get divorced because it is really harsh to be a divorced woman in Afghanistan. The second type of marriage related expense is "Shirbaha" which is a Persian word; means the money that the family of brides receives from groom family as cost of years of feeding and growing her up.

This is un-Islamic practice and it is severally forbidden in Shariah, but is widespread in Afghanistan. It is one of the most evil practices that have led to moral degradation in the country. It is the money generally wanted in cash; however, there are many who give livestock and other kinds of property as Shirbaha.

It is widespread across Afghanistan though differs from family to family and region to region. In parts of the country, the amount paid as Shirbaha has increased to a level that a poor family cannot afford and, therefore, they remain bachelor to the age of 40 - 50 and even life time.

There is also a negative competition. If someone receives huge amount as Shirbaha for marrying his daughter, other people sets him as model and ask for similar amount when someone comes to ask for his daughter. Even there are people who otherwise wanted to ask for no money from their possible groom but they are forced to do so as part of social prestige. If he does not ask for Shirbaha, then local people would start murmuring and muttering that his daughter might have physical or psychological problem.

Recently, one of my friend went for a marriage to someone's house, and the householder, he told me later, okayed but listed items for his daughter along with the money of Shirbaha, we calculated that amount and it become more then 26 hundred thousand Afghanis, around $50000 US! (The third category of expenses which I will write a separate article about that has increasingly changed into a dilemma.)

Thus, those who cannot afford Shirbaha, it is easy way to exchange their daughters or sisters. It is also one of tens of problems that ultimately Afghan women should shoulder and the result of it is tragic; like the case of young women in Herat, in the story told at the start of this article.

Masood Korosh is the permanent writer of Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlookafghanistan@gmial.com

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