Risvi (left) and Sajeetha, who got married without an exchange of dowry.
Instead, he bought her a gold tali, or marriage necklace.-Gea Swee Jean

All's fair in love

TEH JOO LIN & JAMIE EE

Mr Zainul Bawa has a problem on his hands. Make that two.

"My two daughters are of marriageable age. I'm supposed to marry them off, but we've no money, no houses, no facilities," said the 52-year-old elder from Kotukala in Pottuvil, a Muslim village wiped out by the tsunami.

"No one here has gotten married since the tsunami," the fisherman said with a sigh.

So for now, Mr Zainul's daughters, aged 20 and 22, are single and staying with him three kilometers away from their destroyed home, in a transitional shelter built from wooden planks and topped with metal sheets.

The dowry system prevalent in rural parts of Sri Lanka holds them back. This Indian sub-continental custom obliges a bride's family to offer payment to the groom before a union can happen. This can take the form of money, jewelry and property.

No more dowry for marriages

But while Mr Zainul and his daughters remain caught in a bind of tradition, others have broken free.

Across other parts of Sri Lanka's significantly Muslim eastern coast, which was devastated by the tsunami of Dec 26, the dowry system has been smashed along with lives and property. This has resulted in a spurt of what some villagers term "golden tsunami marriages".

No official statistics are available, but in Akbar Village in Maruthamunai alone, about 280 couples got hitched within six months of the tsunami. Most of the weddings took place within three months after the waves struck, said Mr A. R. Samiyoon, 33, one of the villagers.

Parents are putting their strict criteria on the backburner so the young can experience the joys of marriage - before the next wave comes.

Mr Samiyoon said: "We think that the tsunami is coming again, and parents want to let their sons and daughters marry and enjoy family life before they die. So they agree very easily to their children marrying.

"Last time, we needed dowry. Now no house, how to give? This is a good chance for women in a sense," he added.

Before the tsunami swept in as the ultimate leveller, the dowry requirement meant women from poor families had to struggle to scrape together money to find a spouse. According to villagers, this practice sometimes resulted in situations where potential husbands ensconced in well-paid professions hand-picked their wives from the "highest bidders".