Economic Fall Causing Yemenis to Get Married in their 30’s

Under the current pressing economic situation, male youth prefer to delay their marriage plans, as many of them get married at their early 30’s. Other youth prefer to give up the idea of marriage as they think that marriage will make them carry a burden which is too heavy.

Ibrahim Al-Dahan, private sector employee pointed out that a lady may, out of the current situation where few capable men exist, marry the first one who comes to propose for her marriage. She will not consider other factors including handsomeness, social status, educational background, etc.

Al-Dahan assured that women are prompted by the deteriorating economic situation to accept any man as long as he can support her financially irrespective of his other personal traits.

Walid Ahmed, a laborer at a grocery shop, agrees with Al-Dahan and hints that a lady from his village who is famous for her beauty and pride agreed to marry someone who lacks in most features she was looking for in the past and this is mainly because she was fearing spinsterhood. 

Ahmed added that they were shocked to know that she married that guy and stressed that some people had not dared even to come closer to her thinking she is looking for someone with certain feature that could not exist in youth from the countryside.

He maintained that that due to the weak financial situation in Yemen a woman, fearing spinsterhood, will marry the first one knocking on the house's door asking her hand for marriage, hinting spinsterhood rates are on increase especially in cities and among educated women.

A youth in his early 40s, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed out that marriage is too costly nowadays especially when fathers tend to raise the dowry in parallel with the increase of all foodstuff prices, maintaining he thinks high of himself because he is capable of sustaining and supporting himself.

He noted the current deteriorating situation left him no space to think of having a wife and children. "Though I am better than thousands of Yemeni youth because I have a fixed job and a salary, I find it embarrassing to think of getting married and having children while my income is not enough to support me," he said.

Polygamy and mixed marriage

Polygamy has seen an incredible rise, mainly because of the bad situation most Yemenis lead. A woman, aiming to escape her family's worse economic situation, can accept the proposal of a married person even if he was an old man.

Similarly, there has been record increase in the number of Yemeni ladies married to foreigners over the last few years according to Ministry of Justice statistics and observers blame such an increase on the deteriorating situation the country faces together with unprecedented price hikes.

The concerned authorities at Justice Ministry recorded about 1008 cases of mixed-marriage among Yemeni men and women. The authorities recorded 830 cases of Yemeni women getting married to foreigners in 2006 against 849 recorded in 2006. There were just 187 of Yemeni men getting married to foreign women in 2007 while their number was 159 in 2006.

Most of these marriages were prompted by economic reasons, especially among women who aspire to live a luxurious and comforting life away from day-to-day worries they have when marrying fellow poor people in their country. There could be more mixed-marriage cases in case measures were flexible enough.

Likewise, most mixed-marriages of men are mainly made for certain ends, the most important of which are obtaining nationalities of countries to which their wives belong. Had it been for the strict regulations imposed on marriage, we could have seen more Gulf ladies married to Yemenis. 

According to a recent survey by Yemen Polling Center (YPC), age difference has no importance for men and women in Yemen; even if this difference is 20 years. About 63.4 percent of participants declare that age difference is insignificant in case the junior party accepts. Just 22 percent see the marriage should not be made when the age difference is 20 years or over.   

The same survey indicated that 26.3 percent of women respondents fixed no age for marriage legality, as most of them agree that women should marry at early age especially when they fear spinsterhood after the age of 20. 

Tourist marriage

Hundreds of people and under the hard economic situation they lead, resorted to marry their girls to summer visitors who came mainly from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. This marriage was short-lived and the husbands used to leave their wives after the honeymoon without any return. Such conducts of summer visitors prompted several observers to call legal adultery.

The tourist marriages resulted in appalling disasters at all levels: socially, economically and psychologically. All these reasons combined caused people and intellectuals to protest against this marriage and to urge authorities to impose strict measures on mixed-marriage in a way that ensure the woman's rights.