Late Marriage, is it a Trend or is it a Problem?

Published 19 February 2009

Special for Irbid News from the writer Eng. Hani Zaza

In the past 10 or 15 years one could not help but noticing that some and I would say a very sizable some of our young men and women are not getting married until they are in their late twenties early thirties. If this occurred in Europe or in the USA, I would understand because the people of these continents have different traditions, customs, way of life and morals. But to happen here at our door steps and to our young men and women who have to adhere to strict traditions and high morals is a very alarming and worrying phenomenon.

This is an absolute nightmare for our sons and daughters and our society and yet we go about our business and daily lives without giving this phenomenon a second thought. A lot of us have accepted it as a fact of life. This must be wrong, how could we as responsible fathers and mothers, family, society and government watch our boys and girls who are the future of our country being tortured mentally for a very long time without even acknowledging it.

Enough is enough. Let’s not shy away in discussing this matter in the open and let’s not hide our heads in the sand and pretend that there is not a problem. Let’s discuss it together.

There are a large number of questions in relation to this subject which we would like to seek an answer for. I don’t think that we will be able to address all the issues but I say let’s attempt to make a start and try to answer some of the most important ones. In our answers we must try to be honest with ourselves and reasonable in our thinking and fair on our boys and girls.

One of the first and most obvious questions is: Why do we think this is happening? Why do our young men and women are leaving it late in the day to get married? We all know that it is not natural to do so especially when the men and women we are talking about are at the peak of their sexual instinct. This is torture to our youngsters and may god help them and guide them to the straight path and keep them pure until a solution can be found to their suffering.

If I was asked to guess an answer, it would be without a shadow of doubt, the financial complications of the marriage. The cost of the wedding party, the gold, the house, the furniture and may be the honey moon. I must stress here that, this answer is by no means scientific or based on any statistical analysis or surveys. It is just an educated guess based on several discussions I had with young men in Jordan. Do you have any other answers?

Do the parents of the pride want to send their future son in law and the future father of their grand children to the cleaners? Do they want him to spend all what he saved since university graduation and a lot more on the wedding party and leave nothing to the future? Or is this just pressure exerted on you and your family by the some traditions. Or is it because the neighbour’s daughter had a 1000 guest wedding in the Holiday inn? What is it? Will the answers for the above questions be the same if the decision was left to the pride alone and without the interference of her parents and family? I just don’t know and I would like to hear from all the readers particularly parents and prides and see their honest comments on this subject so we can have a clearer picture and be able to complete the puzzle.

At the end of the day, I believe the key to any answers or solutions to this problem lies in the hands of the parents of both the pride and groom. The relationship between the parents and their sons and daughters should be built on trust and openness and away from any prejudice. They should talk to each other freely and with open minds about marriage. By doing so, the problems are spotted at an early stage and can be addressed by the parents of the pride and the groom. Parents should be reasonable and try not to stand in their sons/daughters future. On the contrary they should do all they can to help and make the couple happy and send them to a good start in their lives.

I hope that by discussing this issue in the open and by talking about it at all levels, we will god’s well come up with some remedies to alleviate this problem. For the sake of our sons and daughters and our society, we as parents and as a society have to be very active in seeking and finding these remedies. We have to address this problem with transparency, honesty and with open minds. We as parents were young men in the past and we must know how these youngsters feel or do we?

The alternative and the easiest way out is to do nothing and hope that the problem will just go away. This will be running away from our responsibilities and I believe if we don’t’ do anything “god forbid” the problem will only get worse and I for one don’t want to live to see and witness the consequences this will bring to our conservative, traditional and proud society. So I urge you all to do all you can and I mean it all you can to resolve this problem.


Eng. Hani Zaza-London

 تعليقات القراء - التعليقات تعبر عن آراء كاتبيها ، ولن ننشر التعليقات غير البناءة والهادفة أو غير المتعلقة بالموضوع

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