Quality of girl’s marriage portion and public awareness.

August.2012.

Pashto text of Radio roundtable.

Subject: Quality of girl’s marriage portion and public awareness.

Prepared By: Mohammad Nasim Lalahand.

In the name of merciful God! Dear friends! In the series of campaign of change to life we have a roundtable regarding the quality of girl’s marriage-portion and awareness to people that we want to invite you for its reading; our esteemed guests in this roundtable are Mrs. Hila Barakzai the assistant of Gender department of Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, Lema Anwari the assistant of rights department in Afghanistan Women Network (AWN), first of all I would like to welcome them and then I would like to ask first Mrs. Anwari.

Question: Mrs.Anawri, what is the aim of marriage?

Answer: There are certain aims of marriage between Muslim man and woman, first the marriage is a Sunaa ways of Prophet (PBUH), it causes the eternity of generation, it is repelling the sexual instinct and it is protection of lineages.

Question: Mrs. Barakzai! What is your opinion about this and what points must be considered /heeded before the marriage?

Answer: By my opinion, the aim of marriage is joining two young, knowing each other and joint life so the marriage should be based on mutual consent, the boy and girl should see each other based on the Islamic rights and principles, both must gather information about each other, though unfortunately in our community they see for first time each other on first night of the marriage that there is possibility of disaccord as they may have married according to parents’ wish.

Question: Mrs. Anwari! What would be the effects on their coming life if the boy and girl see and know each other?

Answer: Before I say anything about I would like to tell that the boy and girl must have the right of choice and consent, it is very big requirement for the marriage, they should be deserving of each other marriage, prophet Mohammad (PBUH) has told the marriage should take place with a girl by considering four aims including wealth, lineage, beauty and religiousness, then the prophet Mohammad has told that the religious/pious woman is the best to be married. The boy and girl should have the capability of the marriage, the law has specified 16 years of age for girl’s marriage and 18 years for boy’s marriage, when the matchmaker goes to a family the girl should sit with directly, she should give information about herself and collect information about the boy, the silence of girl is the sign of consent for the marriage while the widow woman must verbally express her consent or disaccord regarding the second marriage

Question: Mrs. Barakzai, What is marriage portion, is the marriage portion common in Afghanistan according to the marriage portion specified by Islam?

Answer: The amount specified by Islam for marriage portion is 10 Dirhams means it should not be less the mentioned amount, specifying of marriage portion over the mentioned amount must be according to the economic situation of the boy, it is better that the boy and girl agree on specifying the marriage portion, if a high marriage is specified and the boy cannot afford the boy has to find the money through loan or go out of the country to earn the money which has many indecent affects.

Question: Mrs. Anwari! What is the aim of marriage-portion?

Answer: There is not any definition in civil law for the dowry, the different meanings has been given to marriage portion in Arabic language such as donated, complete …but Islam cites the quoting of Imam Abu Hanifa ( an influential Imam of Islam out of four Imams, his followers called Hanafis)  who says that the marriage portion is the property that is given by boy to girl, there are two types of marriage portions  one called Musama and other type is Mesl, the Musama is the one that is being specified during marriage/matrimony which has two types one is hurried and the second one is delayed, the hurried is the marriage portion that is being specified during the marriage/matrimony and is being paid soon and the delayed is the marriage portion that a time is being specified for it payment and when the times expires the marriage portion is also given, the Mesl is the marriage portion that is given after marriage according to marriage portion of one of her married relatives such as daughter of aunt or uncle. The prophet Mohammad (PUBH) says that the good marriage is the one that has less expenses, for sure less marriage portion would be specified in.

Question: Mrs. Barakzai! Has your committee held any seminar regarding the effects and benefits of the marriage-portion through your gender department to the people?

Answer: Yes, we give awareness to people through workshops and seminars and have told them if they want their girls or sisters to have good life in their husbands’ houses after marriage and you can surly go to their houses you should specify proper marriage-portion not dowry and give it to your sister or daughter, if you want your sister or daughter face violence and problem ask the dowry which creates the sadness for you and your daughter or sister, the participants accepted our idea and told that it is true that the dowry has many indecent results and the marriage- portion is a good decision for women’ life.

Question: Mrs. Anwari! What do you think how the holding of the seminars and workshops would be beneficial for awareness of the people?

Answer: I think holding of these seminars and workshops in which the men can know better about rights of women and the women can get awareness about men’s rights, it would not be beneficial if public awareness is given only to women or only to men, so it is necessary that the awareness be increased regarding the difference between the dowry and marriage-portion and regarding their benefits and detriments to both women and men.

Question: What is the task of the government in preventing the high expenses during the marriages, and what would be the benefits of approval of the draft in which the prevention of high expenses of marriages have been mentioned?

Answer: There are certain problems in the draft of the law for prevention the high expenditures which are not acceptable for Civil Society, one of the problem is that the draft has specified the limit for the marriage-portion whereas this is not legal from view point of Islam because there is not limit for the marriage –portion, though beneficial issues have been inserted in the draft as well which are acceptable, there are some other laws as well such as law of Elimination of Violence Against the Women, Family Correction Law that if they are put in practice they would be proved beneficial because high expenditures of the marriages have also been cited in  but they have not been implemented so what would be the need of other laws.

Question: As last question I would like to ask you that how the high expenditure in marriages and dowries instead of marriage-portion can be prevented?

Answer1: Mrs. Hila Barakzai: By my opinion if public awareness is given to people regarding the detriments of dowry and benefits of marriage-portion the attention to marriage-portion would be increased.

Answer2: Lema Anwari: By my opinion, it would be very good if much attention is paid to marriage-portion, because the marriage-portion has Islamic and religious base, the marriage-portion is the economy property of the girl that is given after the marriage her, the holly Quran also insists on giving the marriage-portion as it says: O Muslims give your wives the marriage-portion; if your wives grant their marriage-portions to you they are legal for you, refrain from the dowry because it doesn’t has any Islamic or religious base rather it is an indecent custom in our community, the sadness also raise between families of girl and boy for the sake of dowry as the boy or his family would not be able to pay the money for dowry, the economic weakness of the boy on the one hand and the expectation of the girl family itself is a big obstacle in front of the young as many of young have remained single which also create problem in the community.

The end.