{"id":31779,"date":"2017-01-13T09:48:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T09:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/somali-town-bans-lavish-wedding-spending\/"},"modified":"2017-01-13T09:48:22","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T09:48:22","slug":"somali-town-bans-lavish-wedding-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/somali-town-bans-lavish-wedding-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali town bans lavish wedding spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A Somali town has banned lavish weddings to encourage young people to marry and stop them migrating.}<\/p>\n<p>Receptions in hotels would no longer be allowed and only three goats could be slaughtered to feed guests, Beled Hawa&#8217;s commissioner told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>Spending limits of $600 (\u00a3500) on furnishings for a couple&#8217;s new home and up to $150 for the bride price had also been set, Mohamud Hayd Osman said.<\/p>\n<p>It is not unusual for a groom&#8217;s family to spend about $5,000 on a wedding.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC Somali service&#8217;s Bashir Mohamed says this amount includes the bride price, wedding reception, outfits and jewellery for the bride as well as new furniture.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Islamic teachings indicated that getting married should be cheap,&#8221; Mr Osman told the BBC Somali service.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to restrict spending on &#8220;wild partying&#8221; and other expenses had been taken after officials met to find out why 150 children had recently been born out of wedlock in the town.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Young women were refusing to get married unless a fortune was spent on wedding gold and household furnishings,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Times were already difficult in Beled Hawa, which neighbours Kenya, because of the drought and unemployment &#8211; and the high cost of weddings was another contributing factor in people leaving the area, the commissioner said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A young woman must be supported to get married to the young man she chooses&#8230; so the community can grow,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said $600 should be enough to purchase a double bed, table and chairs as well as crockery and cutlery.<\/p>\n<p>Traditionally the events around a Somali wedding go on for seven days.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17581 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_93555884_rtsnihx.jpg\" alt=\"Traditionally Somali brides wear different outfits over the wedding celebrations \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A Somali town has banned lavish weddings to encourage young people to marry and stop them migrating.} Receptions in hotels would no longer be allowed and only three goats could be slaughtered to feed guests, Beled Hawa&#8217;s commissioner told the BBC. Spending limits of $600 (\u00a3500) on furnishings for a couple&#8217;s new home and up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31779"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31779"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}