Other details of our weddings

When the girl get engaged, her family buys her everything she may need, her cloth, towels, bed covers, nightdresses and so on, while the groom's family buys the furniture like the bed room (the bride choose it but they pay for it) other things in the house both family help each other according to their wealth. The reason why the groom and the bride don't choose everything by themselves with their own money is the lack of money for the young couple.

The first breakfast after the new couple gets married is usually made by the bride's mother who brings it to their house in the morning (It's optional). the breakfast usually contains Kahi which is also a traditional breakfast in many occasions like Eid, it is some kind of pastry sweated with a sweeten syrup, usually eaten it with local cream which we call it (qaimar) and honey.

In the Nishan party, the groom and his family bring gifts to the bride including some night dresses and perfumes and some clothes decorated inside baskets (this is traditional in Baghdad and some of the cities but not all of them).

The white dress is usually bought by the groom or his family.

In Sab'a the mother of the bride and her mother in low give gifts from gold or diamond to the bride (optional).

Now let's discuss our main problem for most of the Iraqis right now which is residence. It's impossible for a normal paid couple to build or buy a simple house or even rent it. We have a serious problem with that, the lands became so expensive the last ten years and reached a high level the last couple of years, Baghdad and also the other cities expand horizontally not vertically as it should be according to the increae of population in Iraq, so we have very few residential buildings. The increment of prices of construction materials plus the bad rental law we have (which I'm going to talk about in another post) makes very few people think of investing their money for a public building or residential buildings. Therefore most couples either lives in a bed room in the man’s family's house and that is a very big problem for both of them or if his family is wealthy enough they could build him a small apartment above their house. If their house is big enough or have a big garden they build them a small house but this needs a lot of money.
Buying a good small house needs about one hundered millon Iraqi dinar which is about 70 thousands dollars and may be much more according where you want to buy your land, so according to our wages you can have your own house for about 25 years if you get a good salary. Or you should wait till some of your wealthy relatives die or you should be a merchant or a thief, or you become so lucky if your family is rich enough and they can offer you a house. We don't have payment by installment which can make things much easier for many of those who can pay a large amount of money every month but could not buy a house in advance. For me I consider my self lucky, my husband's family have a big house and wealth enough, so they separated their house for us, but I am still dreaming of my own house, but compared to others I'm very lucky. At least I have my own privacy. Many couples have children now and still unable to build or buy a house so they still live all together in the same bedroom!

I know a family that have five grown men in their house, they all got married and all have children some of them have 2 and others 3 and they still live in the same house together, when I go there I usually have a bad headache for the loud noise I hear.


Our community makes us depend completely on our parents, the parents are helping us in many ways, because they had the chance to build themselves while we are trying but we can't.

In many cities like Mosul, It's impossible for a couple to start their live separated form the husband's family even If they are wealthy enough, because they simply don't accept this, and they want all the family to live together with their children and grandchildren as well.

When the bride becomes pregnant with here first child, her family should buy all the child needs, his clothes, the bed, etc…..this tradition is more practiced in Mosul than Baghdad. Well if you want to know why I always compare things with mosul is because, I'm half form Baghdad and Half form Mosul. My father is form Mosul but he left Mosul since he was young but I still have so many relatives there, while my mother is from Baghdad.