After being defined by many philosophers and sociologists, I wonder if anyone has recently attempted to change or modify the definition of marriage in accordance with modernity.
Recently, the simpler people's lives are becoming, I feel like the more complex is marriage itself becoming.
From my own views and additional perspectives towards my surroundings, I perceived the more liberal both financially and socially we are becoming, somehow the less we are interested in marriage.
Also, aside from those, there are some extremely absurd religious, cultural, and traditional laws that are followed in marriage, which seems to be progressing from a "simple law/tradition" into a "concerning burden" for both parties (bride and groom).
There are economical conditions, career orientation, income and sources, skin color, race, caste, and many more parts are related to a marriage.
But the two major contexts, which are regning would be "maher" and "dowry", I would say.
Maher/Meher/Mahr
There is this recent thing going on in the bridal group of people (women who are getting married or planning to be) about this "Maher/Meher/Mahr" (you accentuate it as 'mo-ho-r').
It is mostly a religious doctrine for Muslims, however, I wonder if it is regarded as the same everywhere who are the followers of Islam.
Because, though it has a very pleasant history and principles to be corroborated, it has lost its way and has rather become a burden for the groom, just like "Dowry" for women, as hapless as it perceived.
Here's our story of "Maher"!
What is your kind of story about "Maher"? I am curious to know, if I may please.
What "Maher" is.
To you people, to whom it is undivulged, let me delineate as a part of comminute with facile manner.
The irony is that if you google these words, it will display some elegant meanings and reasonings of these both traditions! But then it has become too drastic in reality, in the name of tradition/religion, that there happens violence and even death revolving around these two segments about marriage.
What google will tell you is that...
"In Islamic law, Maher is a gift or contribution made by the husband-to-be to his wife-to-be, for her exclusive property, as a mark of respect for the bride, and as recognition of her independence. It is not, however, a gift in the traditional sense, but is in fact obligatory and the wife-to-be receives it as a right."
Sounds quite a unique idea does it not?
And it is also said, the amount of worth money is decided for a marriage as "Maher", has to be paid to the bride before signing the marriage. Otherwise, the marriage will be religiously invalid, and interaction with the wife will count as "sin"!
What has become of "Maher"!
However, with the more progressive era, the concept of "Maher" has now rather than a "gift" become an "insurance for a sustainable marriage" to the families, to be more precise like a "gage to hold responsible the groom". Particularly, in the middle class and upward families, both bride and parents believe that the higher the "Maher" is, the more sustainable the marriage will be!
Which eventually led them to demand for a ridiculous amount of money and care less whether the groom paid it or not or about the actual religious law of it.
Recently, this idea has become even worse enough to scare the man to get even married followed by losing interest in marriage out of perturb due to the amount of "Maher" the bride party would demand.
Everyone has become so absurdly unreasonable of demanding "Maher" that it is astonishing to think it is not even greed but has become a way of show-off to the society, something to brag with your peers.
Source
It has sort of become to parade like an "accomplishment" if you can attain a marriage with an excessive amount of "Maher". As disappointing as it is, women who are now becoming more liberal with education and career compared to before, are still following this tradition rather aggressively.
Maher and Divorce
And last but not the least, there has this notion (or maybe it has actually become a ethos) incremented, if the "Maher" is higher, even if there comes a time when the groom would think of divorce, he will not "Divorce" the bride easily as he will then have to pay the whole amount of "Maher"!
And as long as the marriage runs smoothly, nobody cares about paying the "Maher", let alone being concerned of whether religiously the marriage is valid or not!
Source
But I could not obtain a logical reasoning from anyone from my little survey, that "If you think of divorcing someone, will the 'maher' restrain it from happening?"
And even if it does, would you call that a marriage "to live on" anymore, for as long as you live?
So tell me ladies, what kind of Mahr your country has?
And what sort of Mahr you desire?
Or what was your mahr story like?
The contents are mine until mentioned otherwise.