Yasmine Abdulhafeez – Women in Development and Peace
This true story recounts Um Muhannad’s (pseudonym) experience when a young man proposed to her only daughter. It highlights the economic challenges facing Yemeni families when preparing for marriage. The young man’s mother offered a dowry of 400,000 Riyals – a small sum compared to the exorbitant wedding costs, especially with the country’s ever-increasing prices.
This story reflects the harsh reality faced by many Yemeni families. The high cost of dowries and weddings burdens families and becomes an obstacle for young people wanting to marry. Um Muhannad points out that the soaring price of gold (over 38,000 Riyals per gram) is a major reason for expensive dowries, along with the high cost of clothing and other bridal necessities.
Um Muhannad also mentions other complexities families face when marrying off their daughters. Although the young man proposing to her daughter is moral, religious, and from a good family, the real problem is his family’s difficult economic situation.
Um Muhannad wants to proceed with the engagement, even if she has to sell some of her jewelry to prepare her daughter. She’s motivated by the young man’s good character, but her family, including her husband, is hesitant. They fear he can’t provide for their daughter’s basic needs.
They’re worried he’s been spoiled by his parents, and never had to work hard or handle money. So, they’re scared their daughter will face a future of hardship, poverty, and hunger. It’s their only daughter, so they don’t want that for her.
Amal Ahmad (pseudonym) shares her experience with her three sisters, all over 30 and unmarried. Many men proposed, but all lacked good character and morals, leading the family to reject them. She explains, “They haven’t found someone who meets the basic marriage criteria: religion, morals, good family background.”
Amal recalls a story from school: an 80-year-old mother going from classroom to classroom asking for money to afford a dowry for her son. This made her wonder, “How can someone who couldn’t save up for a dowry their whole life manage to meet the demands of married life and support a wife and children?”
Amal explains that many Yemeni women choose not to marry despite their age, due to unsuitable suitors, incapable of managing a family and providing a stable life. They prefer to wait for someone who can offer a decent life, without luxury or extravagance. This choice reflects a growing view of marriage as a long-term commitment requiring a partner capable of providing both financial and emotional support.
Challenges and Solutions
Spinsterhood, or remaining unmarried past a certain age, is a serious social issue in Yemen, especially since the conflict. Lots of young men were drafted, lost their education, and many died or ended up in prison.
Experts say many challenges are driving up Yemen’s spinsterhood rate, including poverty, unemployment, customs and traditions, family pressure, and the aspirations of many young people who postpone marriage until their goals are met. There’s also societal bias against educated women, ignorance, and the high cost of living, forcing many parents to demand higher dowries. Other economic, social, and cultural challenges also contribute.
Women in Development and Peace newspaper conducted interviews with a group of economic and social specialists as well as activists to shed light on possible solutions and suggestions to tackle the issue of spinsterhood in Yemen and the various challenges associated with it.
Fawzi Mohammed Al-Shami, Professor of Social Sciences and Social Work, believes that the rise of spinsterhood in Yemen is tied to many challenges, including poverty, unemployment, conflicts, cultural changes, traditions, and education levels.
He explained that tough economic times delay marriage because of the difficulty in affording housing and dowries.
Poverty and unemployment cause financial instability, making young people fear the future and responsibility, leading them to hesitate about marriage. These difficulties create an environment unsuitable for marriage, increasing spinsterhood in Yemeni society.
Al-Shami continues, saying, “There’s an urgent need to find solutions to tackle the issue of spinsterhood in Yemen. Among the suggested solutions is improving economic conditions to create job opportunities for young people, enabling them to achieve financial stability that helps them start new families. Also, ensuring political and security stability will give the youth confidence in their future. There should be community awareness about the importance of reducing marriage costs and letting go of complicated customs and traditions. We need to amend legislation to encourage marriage, provide social and economic protection for young people, and offer counseling and psychological services for youth and families to face psychological and social challenges. Additionally, empowering women is essential, as it helps them become active partners in forming stable families.”
Marriage and Education
Nadia Naji, a member of Southerners for Peace, says social challenges contribute to spinsterhood: unemployment, expensive dowries and weddings (with excessive competition and extravagance), parental interference in marriage decisions, high living costs, and high rents.
While positive, education has also contributed, as educated women often prioritize careers and higher education, delaying marriage. If a man with a lower education or social status proposes, they might refuse, fearing oppression or jealousy. Education gives women more independence, leading some to prefer a single life.
Emigration also plays a role, as many emigrating men marry foreign women, reducing opportunities for Yemeni women.
There’s a strong need to find effective solutions to tackle the challenges that are worsening the spinsterhood issue in Yemen, which is notably expanding. This includes addressing false social appearances, like extravagant parties and expensive outfits that rack up huge costs, and promoting the idea of group weddings, which is a practical way to cut down on marriage expenses.
She continues, “We need to simplify and ease the marriage process to fit the current social and economic conditions, making it more accessible for a larger number of young men and women. Families should support young couples instead of imposing challenging restrictions that hinder their marital stability. There’s also a need to balance education and marriage by advising girls not to postpone marriage for the sake of continuing their education; they can agree with their partners to pursue education after marriage.”
Nadia Naji also talks about the solutions that the state and civil society organizations can implement to address spinsterhood and promote marriage as one of the key social institutions. Some of these solutions include raising cultural awareness through educational campaigns that encourage marriage and reinforce family values, simplifying marriage processes, and reducing costs to match current economic and social conditions so that marriage is easier for the youth.
She added, “It’s essential to provide job opportunities for unemployed youth and enhance the role of civil society organizations, like the Yemeni Women’s Union and others, which work on equipping young people with necessary skills and providing affordable loans for those planning to marry. This can help young couples start their married lives without heavy financial burdens, and the media—print, audio, and visual—should play a role in spreading positive messages about marriage, promoting healthy customs and traditions, and working on improving general living conditions in the community to foster stability and the ability to marry and achieve security.”
A Stable Environment
On her side, Dr. Amal Salih Sa’ad Rajih, an associate professor in the Sociology Department at Aden University, shares her view on possible solutions to the spinsterhood phenomenon in society, stressing the need for peace to build a stable environment that fosters marriage and family formation, as well as creating an economically productive foundation that can absorb the young workforce. She emphasizes the need to facilitate marriage without imposing high dowries or holding wedding parties at extravagant halls.
She also highlights the importance of educating young men and women about choosing life partners based on compatibility and mutual respect rather than lineage or wealth and encourages group weddings to lower expenses and make marriage easier for many young people. Moreover, she calls for these organizations to provide support to assist young people with marriage costs.
Community activist Rashid Mohammed sees solutions to combat spinsterhood as providing job opportunities for young people to enhance their ability to marry, improving overall economic conditions in society, and reducing inflated dowries; we should lower dowries and costs associated with marriage to simplify the process and remove extravagance.
Ayda Ashoor, head of the Women’s National Committee branch in Lahj, emphasizes the importance of multiple solutions to address the spinsterhood issue in society, including media awareness through television, radio, and press to spread understanding of the importance of marriage and the need to change certain concepts and traditional customs related to it, improve economic situations, and encourage ties with working women who have social or political knowledge, as this helps lessen burdens for their partners.
She adds, “Associations and institutions must hold group weddings for financially constrained youth who are facing tough circumstances, as this helps reduce the spinsterhood phenomenon. Organizing educational programs for youth about the significance of marriage and forming families, instead of drifting away from these values, should be carried out by civil society organizations.”
Nadia Naji also points out that the family is the basic cell of society, serving as a source of stability and happiness for individuals. Marriage serves as the foundation of family, offering a legitimate and lawful means to satisfy psychological, social, and economic needs. It fulfills essential human instincts like parenthood, ultimately granting children their social and legal existence while aiding in the preservation of the human species.