weddings between past and present in the UAE

     Marriage is one of the oldest institutions in the world. It is a lifelong relationship between two individuals who vow to care for each other and share their joys and sorrows, and promise to support and be supported, by the other. Marriages have always been governed by customs, traditions, usages and conventions from time immemorial. This occasion, marked by joyous celebration of the joining of man and woman in holy matrimony, is of the bonding, the relative security of two persons, being together as one unit, part of a family, of a community and, by logical extension, a part of society. When a man and woman join together, life becomes complete.

     Our project is about weddings between past and present in the UAE, and we view the changes that happened in weddings. And the big change that we notice is that in the past families encouraged their children to early marriage, and that was between 15-17 years to the boys and 12-14 years to the girls. But now a day they abandoned this habit for several reasons .And the main reasons is that the youth are not taking the responsibilities of wedding and the highest dowry yet.  

     We chose this topic because we think marriage (wedding) is a big issue that we face in the Emirates society and a lot of youngest Emirate is reluctant to marry. Also we have to raise the issue of high dowries because it has become a social ill for the Emirates society. In addition, the wedding in the present is make more lose money, therefore, the young men don't want to married because fewness of aid between them. From that we see a lot of spinsters and that due to dowry and high cost of wedding places. In addition, the youngest men prefer to marry from foreign women because they will not request higher dowry.

     In this project first, we will define wedding and then we will talk about preparations for the wedding detail and the dowry issues. Second, we will talk about wedding invitation cards and where wedding places are. Finally, we will talk about the dowry issue and we will propose some solutions to solve this issue. Also we will include our project with some statistics and research.

Method

        In this report we chose a specific topic which is about weddings in the UAE past and present. Second, we started to collect the information about these subtopics (wedding definition, preparation, the dowry, invitation, the party place, the wedding style, the couple home, the marriage benefits, influence of foreign cultures and the social problems of wedding).  After that, we collected the information from various sources to show the differences and the changes in weddings between past and present. Then we interviewed the people who married before and after the marriage Fund about how much their dowry was to get the results about the dowry problem. In addition, we drew a pie chart that shows the average of the dowry costs. Also, we drew a comic story that shows another social problem which is the bride's conditions.        

Results

       When we collected our information we found that the wedding is a ceremony that celebrates the beginning of a marriage or civil union. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethic groups, religions, countries and social classes. In some countries, cultures and religions, the actual act of marriage being during the wedding ceremony.

In others, the legal act of marriage occurs at the time of signing a marriage license or other legal document and the wedding is then an opportunity to perform a traditional ceremony and celebrate with friends and families. The woman taking part in the ceremony is called the bride and the man is called the bridegroom. After the ceremony, they become husband wife.

In addition, we found how the people prepare for the wedding. In the past, if a man decided to get married he had to think about one of his cousins first and sometimes they named for each other since they born.  Then his father and he went to bride family to engage her from her father. The girl didn't have to say her opinion, but she had to accept directly. After that, they started to prepare for the wedding which sometimes stayed for a week. The first day is called (Al Zihba). In this day, the groom gave his bride and her family gifts such as clothes, abaya and shila, perfumes and the most important thing is the gold, which must be heavy, expensive and yellow because there was not any white gold or diamonds.

In addition, there were special kinds of gold such as mertasha,

 rings, a long necklace and eardrops. Also, in this day, the family

 members came to see the groom's gifts and they gave the bride

some gifts as much as they can.

                                                                                    

On the second day, which we call it (Al Hhina), the bride was wears a traditional green dress which called (Al Thoob). In addition, she was wears her own jewelries. Then, she had to sit in front of the women to put hena on her foot and hands. While the groom was wears a white dishdasha, getra, okal and dagger. In addition, he put hena on his feet only. For a whole week, the bride and groom's families cooked the traditional food for their neighbors such as (Thareed, Harees, Rice and meat and Kabisa). After that, all the celebration ceremonies were done in the bride's home. The final and the main day were for the celebration.

      On the other hand, nowadays if a man wants to get married, he could choose a girl who he likes or he tells his mother to choose one for him. In addition, the girl has to say her own opinion about the man who wants to engage her. When they choose the girl who they want, the man's family goes to the girl's family and engage her for their son. If they agree then they start to prepare for the engagement party where the bride wears a beautiful dress with hena on her feet and hands.

In addition, she goes to the saloon to make her hair and put make up then they invite some of their family members and some neighbors for the party.

    The groom must give some gifts for the bride.  After a few months, they start to prepare for the wadding party. Before the wedding day the groom must fill bags of different kinds of clothes, shoos, bags, Mick up, different mark of perfumes and gold which must be various like white gold and diamonds.

The food  

In past weddings, the women started to cook a lot of food at home because they were not prefer any food from restaurants.  The most important feasts were Harees and Rice with Meat. In addition, there were many traditional eatables like kabees, Lgimat, Balalite and Thareed.

Nowadays, no one cook for the weddings at home. Every thing is cooked in the restaurants. The most important feasts are the same as in the past.

 In addition, they must be Harees, Thareed and Rice with Meat on

 each table in the wedding hall. However, the other eatable are

 completely different from the past. They are Broil, Chickpea,

 Bread, Jelly, Crème Caramel and others.

The songs

       The songs are very important in the weddings at all times but they are different from time to time. In the past the songs were very simple and traditional words which were saying by old women and the young ladies were dancing. In addition, there was a special dance for men, which called (al ayala).

Nowadays, al ayala still the most important dance for the men. While for the women there are special squads, which contain the singer, dancers and musical instruments.

      

  When the two families decided the day of wedding, they invite the people before it also the way in the invitation is different from past and present.

In the past, the groom's, bride's families and some neighbors met together to invite the people for the wedding party. After that, they went to every house in the village and invite them for the wedding. Nowadays, the groom's family makes an invitation cards for each house in the village, which cost a lot of money especially when they make a big and designed card.

Although our Prophet Mohamed warned us from wasting, the people still waste their money in these cards. In addition, the place of the wedding party is also different. In the past, the wedding began in the groom's house and it continued three days, often started on Wednesday morning and ended on Friday.

In addition, relatives and friends met in the groom's house, then they helped each other by divided the works like whom cooking, leader of organizing, gave some money for the groom and who to sacrifice. After they were eaten a launch all of them carried all things for the bride in her house like clothes and jewelries by camels or cars. After that, they arrived to the bride's house in the night and they ate a dinner that made by the groom's father.

 In the morning of Thursday, they put two tents near the bride's house, one tent for the men and another for the women. Finally, in the evening of Thursday and Friday the people came and went in the bride's house to celebrate. While in the present, the people make the wedding party in the hotels or the luxury wedding halls.

   After wedding, the couple's home is very important. In the past, there was not any Honeymoon for any new couple so, after the wedding ceremonies the groom took his bride to his family house where they will live. In the present, every thing changed because the groom takes his bride and traveled to spend their Honeymoon in any country outside the UAE, but sometimes the couple may spend it inside in a hotel.

 After one week or a month the groom, take his bride to his family house too live or to her own house. Moreover, there are many benefits from marriage (Social, Politic, Economical and Religion). Moreover, they are different from past and present.

 In the past:

Social benefit is to make the size of the family big to have their respect with other families.

Politic benefit is that the numbers of the family members make its power and respect.    

Economical benefit which means that if the family is big in size then its members could do their work, produce more and make money to live by sharing the work with each other.

Religion benefit is the importance to have wife and children because our Prophet Mohamed said that we have to marry and have children because he will be proud of us in the doomsday.

In the present the:

Social benefit decreased because of the educated parents they want 2or 4 children maximum.

Politic benefit also changed which means that the family has its respect from its place and role in the society also from its work fields.

Economical benefit means that the most of the families do not care about their production because the life became comfortable and they do not have to work to live.

Religion benefit did not change because they still married to continue the half of their religion and to make their own family.

        In addition, the foreign cultures played a role in the UAE wedding. In the past, the people made trading with different countries, but that didn't effect in their culture because they kept and saved their habits and traditions and they didn't take anything from another countries cultures that they trade to. In addition, the young people in the past were more related with grandparents and that made them more handhold of tradition and heritage of UAE strongly. While in the present the UAE communicate with many countries as in the past, but now the other cultures' habits and traditions effected very fast in the UAE culture.  Through what we heard from the old Emarati people about the wedding in the past and what we do now in the wedding, there are a lot of mutations happened. One of them is the wedding dress. In the past, the bride was wears a green dress (Thoob) and put jewelries in her head that we call it (Tasa), (Merteasha) put in her nick and (Alkaff) in her hands, but in the present the bride wears the white dress and catch in her hand a bunch of flowers and put Tarha in her head and wear kit of jewelries.

          Another mutation is the way of eating. In the past, the family was cooking the food for the wedding. after that the guests  ate the food on the floor and use their hands to eat, while in the present the groom pay money for a restaurant to cook the food for the wedding and put the food on tables for the visitors and they use spoons, knifes and forks to eat. Although, the places of the wedding are changed from houses and tents to halls and chambers.

       

          Also, when the bride entered to guests preceding all her brothers and sisters entered her and sat in the floor, but now when she enters to the stage of the hall she enters with one of her brothers or by her own and sits in a beautiful chair. However, after the wedding the bride in the past stayed one day in her father's house then she went to her husband's house to live with his family, while now the bride go with her husband's house in the same day of the wedding and she can lives with his family or in her own house.

  Discussions and Recommendations

      The most important point that needs discussion is the social problems. Moreover, what we could do to reduce them. Also, we will try to recommend some advices for the parents, brides and grooms to reduce them, such as (high dowry, the bride's conditions and the big debt).

         Nowadays, the bride's father asks high dowry from the groom which is about 100-500 thousands DHs. Then the groom decides if he pays this money or marries a foreign woman in less than that dowry which leads to another problem. In my opinion, I think that the parents should not ask much dowry because our Prophet Mohamed said that the girl who marries with low dowry has more blessing. I think that the best way to reduce this problem is to educate the people religiously and tell them about the results of asking high dowry. Also, the government must put punishments for whom asking high dowry. Another problem is the bride's conditions. Sometimes, the bride asks her groom for an expensive wedding hall and cards instead of her own home, excused by that she does not want to live with his family to have not problems with them.

             Then, the groom will take loan from the bank and year after year his debt will increase, which makes problems with his wife and family and sometimes this leads to divorce. In my opinion, to reduce this problem we could tell the brides about the problems that could happen because of her conditions and put her between two choices. In addition, the government tried to reduce the debt problem by make the (Gathering wedding) for men to save a part of their money.

  

        

       Moreover, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, the president of UAE ordered to form the wedding Fund; to help the citizens in the wedding's costs in 1992.

The Target of Marriage Fund:

1. Encourage the citizen's men to marry citizen's women.
2.  Provide financial grants to citizens of the limited capacities state to subsidize them in marriage's costs.
3. Decrease the percentage of marrying from foreigners and educate the citizens about the social effects.
4. Help to make the stability of family in the society and educate them religiously, cultural and sociological to achieve the social policy for the state with the competent ministries.    

Conclusion

       The aim of our research was to find out what are the main differences between weddings in past and present in the UAE. In order to find that, we searched in different sites, books, interviewed some old women who could help us in our project and finally, we interviewed twenty people, who are married.

We can see from the results that the weddings in the past were completely different from these days. One interesting finding was that the way to prepare for the weddings, which were easier in the past than these days. In addition, the pays were less than these days. Moreover, there are many differences in the food, alzihba and the wedding style.

     Another interesting result was that the benefits from marriage which are, (social, political, economical and religious) were very important for each family. Whereas, nowadays, all these benefits are disappear excepting the religion benefits.

Finally, we found that the differences between the dowry average before and after the marriage fund. The pie chart shows that the dowry average before the marriage fund was 7485, while its increased to 20000 after it.