By Azmat Haroon
A series of initiatives launched by Qatar Charity last week will provide pre-marriage counseling and financial assistance to Qatari couples wishing to tie the knot.
The programme comes in the wake of concerns of many who say that weddings have become a symbol of social status and wealth in the country.
In a country where people enjoy a very high purchasing power, the need for financial support is not surprising for some, given the soaring costs of wedding.
A Qatari groom on average pays a dowry of anywhere between QR100,000 and QR300,000, and the cost of wedding is over half-a-million riyals.
This can be estimated from the fact that even wedding cards, which come in ordinary and VIP categories, can cost anything between QR100 and QR500 a piece.
“Previously, people used to get married to establish a family but now they marry with different aims today,” argues Dr Tahir Shaltout, a Senior Consultant in Psychiatry at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
Surprisingly, there are families that look at marriages as a potential opportunity to strike a business deal.
“Some families look at marriage as a way of showing off social prestige and their social status. For others, marriage has financial implications such as getting loans or money to investment in business to make profit,” Shaltout said.
Yet, despite the extravagance in weddings, some 61 percent of divorce cases in the country take place in the first five years of marriage, according to statistics.
The rate of divorce is also very high, which according to some experts, is because youngsters are not educated about married life. Since 2009, one-third of divorces among Qataris have taken place on the first day of their marriage.
According to Qatari sociologists, it is important to acknowledge the problem of high rate of divorce in Qatar and the region at large.
There is an estimated 25 million women aged 24 and above in the Arab world — including the Gulf region — who remain unmarried and large numbers of them have crossed the marriageable age of 35, a study revealed last year.
“Arab youngsters are mentally not prepared for marriage. They are not ready to take new responsibilities. They wish to live as independently as they did before marriage,” Shaltout explained.
Other experts also say that many Qatari families no longer live as a ‘unit’.
An official from the Supreme Council for Family Affairs said that Qatari families are not as close-knitted as they were before.
“This gives them conflicting ideas about how to keep a family together, which is why disagreements among couples lead to separations and divorces,” said the official, citing a lack of communication skills as a serious problem.
In Qatar, some 30 percent of women aged 34 and above remain unmarried.
Despite a rapidly changing social environment in Qatar, many families still don’t allow their sons and daughters to meet their potential life partners before marriage.
“Some families don’t even allow young girls and boys to sit together before marriage,” Dr Moza Al Malki, a Qatari psychologist, said.
This, she argues, is a contradiction even from an Islamic point of view because Islam allows youngsters to see each other under certain conditions before marriage.
The common practice in Qatar is that it is usually the sister or the mother of the groom who is responsible for choosing the bride.
For girls, fathers almost always seek husbands for them within the immediate family while for boys, the wife ‘has’ to be a Qatari, says Al Malki.
The problem is more grave for blind women, and those with other disabilities, for whom the subject of marriage is taboo.
While it is socially and culturally acceptable for a blind man to have a wife, in some cases more than one, families of blind women feel ashamed to even bring up the subject of their marriage.
Many Qatari youngsters cite the soaring costs of wedding as the main problem in getting married.
The Qatari government has launched an initiative under which a number of wedding halls are being built across the country which will be available for Qataris for free.
The halls, which can seat 500, will be equipped with latest audio-visual technologies.
As per another initiative launched last week, the Aspire Zone will provide Qatar Charity with free wedding tents for Qataris.
The programme aims to support Qatari youngsters and minimise the financial pressure being faced by families.
Many Qatari businessmen have agreed to support the initiative, Ahmed Al Kuwari, Executive Director of Qatar Charity, said.
Financial support will be in addition to counselling sessions for youngsters before and after marriage.
Many experts, however, have said that this may not be enough to help promote successful marriages and family stability.
A contract should be signed between couples and Qatar Charity should ensure they repay part of the costs of weddings in case of divorces, Shaltout said.
“Some people may take advantage of the new initiative and get married, only to divorce soon. Financial support should be directed at the right people and there ought to be some criteria for selection of families as beneficiaries,” he said.
Shaltout said in case of early divorce, there should be a contract between Qatar Charity and the couple to return part of marriage costs.
Meanwhile, Al Malki says that a majority of family consultants in the country are not Qataris.
“Most organisations have experts from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other countries. They don’t realise that it is Qatari psychological consultants that can be of best help,” Al Malki said.
Another issue is that no comprehensive study has been conducted so far that looked divorces. Most studies aimed to estimate the number of divorces and marriages, without going deeper into problems faced by people.
Al Malki says that the Qatari society needs to be more open towards the life partners their sons and daughters choose for themselves.
“Many institutions are not segregated now. Qatari youngsters now socialise with one another openly in schools, universities and offices. They have more networking opportunities,” Al Malki said.
In view of this new social phenomenon, it is only when families encourage youngsters to see one another before marriage that we can ensure there are fewer cases of divorces in the future, she said.
The Peninsula
