Twenty-nine-year-old Payenda Mohammad was married in March in a simple ceremony in a northern town in Afghanistan. The marriage only lasted four hours, but that was exactly what he wanted.
"Nobody would give me their daughters to marry because I didn't have family or money," says Payenda, whose parents and sister died about 15 years ago.
While in Iran, he started trying temporary marriages, and he kept doing it when he came back to Afghanistan. He's now been married 20 times.
PHOTO: AFP
In a country where marriages are taken seriously and people rarely divorce, the idea of temporary marriage is beginning to catch on.
The process is simple. To get married, a couple goes to a mullah who marries them for a stipulated period of time -- from a few hours to a few years. Afterwards, they can then choose to marry each other again or separate.
In a normal marriage, an Afghan groom must pay a dowry that is usually at least 42,250 Afghanis (NT$32,400). He then has to pay for the wedding party, which can cost thousands more. However, many Afghans don't have the money to pay for this.
"Short marriages have a lot of benefits for women whose husbands have died," says Nazira, who is in the middle of a temporary marriage.
"It helps them look after their children better ... Also, we don't have to pay for a wedding party because with a short marriage we just go to a mullah."
She says a regular marriage would have cost her and her husband 125,000 Afghanis.
"It is very difficult," she says. "Where would we find that kind of money?" (AFP)
二十九歲的帕岩達．穆罕默德上個月在阿富汗北部一個小鎮舉行了簡單的結婚儀式，這段婚姻只維持了四小時，但那正是他想要的。
父母和姊姊早在十五年前就去世的帕岩達說：「沒有人肯把女兒嫁給我，因為我沒有家庭也沒有錢。」
帕岩達在伊朗時開始嘗試短期婚姻，回到阿富汗後，他繼續這種生活。迄今為止，他已結過二十次婚。
在這個神聖看待婚姻且離婚率極低的國家，短期婚姻的想法正開始流行。
結婚手續十分簡單。想結婚的男女只要找位穆拉證婚，就能在雙方約定的期間內－從幾個小時到幾年都可以－維持夫妻關係。期滿之後，他們可以選擇跟對方再結一次婚或是離婚。
在正常的婚姻中，阿富汗新郎通常必須拿出至少四萬兩千兩百五十阿富汗尼（新台幣三萬兩千四百元）的聘禮，然後還得支付婚宴的費用，這又得多花好幾千塊錢。不過，阿富汗許多民眾無力支付這些。
正處於短期婚姻狀態的娜茲拉說：「短期婚姻對喪夫的婦女來說好處很多。」
「喪夫的婦女能藉此給子女更好的照顧。再者，由於是只需找位穆拉證婚的短期婚姻，所以我們根本不必負擔婚宴的費用。」
娜茲拉表示，一段正常的婚姻會花掉她和先生十二萬五千阿富汗尼。
她說：「那太難了，我們要上哪兒去籌那筆錢？」
（法新社／翻譯：林倩如）
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