This piece on the cost and extravagance of Afghan weddings is affecting, and sad. On the one hand, you want to credit the human spirit with retaining a sense of joy and celebration in amidst chaos and warfare. On the other, you want to worry about what's clearly become a damaging positional competition that's sending young families deep into debt. "Afghan bridegrooms say tradition and societal pressure leave them with no alternative but expensive weddings in spite of their poverty," reports the Times. "Marriage is arguably the most important rite of passage for a young Afghan man, and the luxuriousness of the ceremony reaffirms his family’s status." Hamid, one of the men quoted in the article, makes a lavish-for-Afghanistan salary of $7,200 a year, and he's paying more than $12,000 for his wedding. "And by Afghan standards," we're told, "that would be considered normal, or even a bargain." Ah, the wages of love.
