(Asian News Hub) – We live in a society where adultery or unholy relationships are easy but legitimate relationship that is Nikkah is expensive and difficult.
Recently a report compiled by a reputed NGO and it was published in the newspaper on 29 April 2021 and even different social media pages had covered this report, the number of girls who have touched the age bar of marriage or some who have already crossed the age bar of marriage are 5000 in number and in Srinagar alone has 10,000 such cases and this is simply heart wrenching and alarming.
CAUSES OF LATE MARRIAGE IN KASHMIR
There are different causes of late marriages in Kashmir and some of the main causes have briefly enumerated.
The plethora why men and women prefer late marriage is that they do not want to be accountable at early age and mostly women and men believe their freedom has been hounded and heckled. The main reason is the extravagant weddings where a poor family cannot afford such weddings and this too impinges the late marriage.
Other reason being the dowry which is most prominent in cities that is why we see more girls in Srinagar district who are unmarried. Furthermore the other reason being the unemployment which has been the biggest hindrance in the marriage setup in our valley where it takes 35 years to get govt job in some cases people do not even get a govt job, mostly families demand even the govt job of girls and in this way whole system get trampled. Finally other cause is poverty where in some cases parents sell there property to marry their daughters.
WAY FORWARD
Change is imperative if we do not change our mindset than it would be too late, in my point of view compromise is must because no one is perfect in the world, we must compromise govt job taboo if someone hasn’t govt job but he or she is highly qualified, we can compromise caste system pendora we must come out of this Orthodox thinking and must shun the lunatic approach of dowry.
Indeed some NGOs in our state are doing prominent job who are providing monetary help to such families who don’t have so much resources to marry their daughters and in my point of view we must ponder on simple marriage as our beloved PROPHET MOHAMMAD (S.A.W) has said that the marriage which is less expensive is the most beautiful marriage.
Furthermore, we must create civic boards in every society to keep the over look of the girls who don’t have much family background and we must help them as much as possible.
About the Author:
Saima Bashir Wani is a renowned writer, pursuing her PhD in Sociology. She can be reached at sb155995@gmail.com