Rising marriage costs: A crisis facing young people and proposed solutions
When a young man decides to take the step of marriage, he faces not only emotional and social challenges, but also a formidable wall of financial costs that have become a nightmare for those embarking on a new married life. It's no longer just about the dowry; the details have expanded to include a long list of expenses that translate into thousands of riyals, starting with furnishing a home, continuing with the costs of wedding halls and lavish feasts, and culminating in the details of the wedding night and honeymoon. These aspects have transformed from mere expressions of joy into burdens that weigh heavily on young people and deplete their savings for years to come.
A field investigation reveals the depth of the crisis
In this context, a journalistic team from Al-Youm newspaper, consisting of editors Hudhaifa Al-Qurashi, Muhammad Al-Sulaiman, Muhammad Al-Awais, Ahmed Al-Masri, Raed Al-Suwailim, and Abdulaziz Al-Omari, and documented by photographer Murtada Boukhamsin, engaged in extensive discussions with various members of society to understand the dimensions of this phenomenon and try to find solutions to the crisis that has begun to challenge the fatwas of facilitation and the current economic conditions.
Social background and historical transformations
Historically, marriage in Arab and Islamic societies was characterized by simplicity, with the true value lying in building a family and strengthening social bonds, in accordance with religious directives that encourage modest dowries and reduced costs to ensure blessings and stability. However, recent decades have witnessed radical shifts in consumerist lifestyles, with notions of "prestige" and social ostentation becoming key factors in determining the form and cost of marriage. Social media has exacerbated this gap, turning weddings into platforms for display, increasing the psychological and financial pressure on families to keep up with trends, even if they exceed their financial means.
Expected economic and social impacts
The continued rise in marriage costs has serious repercussions at both the local and regional levels. Economically, this extravagance plunges young people into long-term debt at the beginning of their careers, hindering their ability to save or invest in other developmental areas and negatively impacting the economic cycle of newly formed families. Socially, these costs are a major cause of delayed marriage (spinsterhood and spinsterhood), leading to numerous social and psychological problems and threatening the demographic structure of society in the long term.
Confronting this phenomenon requires community solidarity to return to the essence of marriage based on affection and compassion, and to activate the role of religious and media institutions to spread a culture of facilitation, in addition to launching governmental and civil initiatives that support young people and alleviate the severity of these burdens.
