European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 14, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tha Price of marrying an Arab woman skyrocketed with Oil Price. Betrothal blues along the persian Gulf Byal Mahmoud associated Pressw Ith Oil income in decline More and More Arab men in persian Gulf countries no longer can afford to marry Arab women. They Are taking less expensive foreign women As heir brides and Arab leaders Are alarmed. The problem rests with an age old Arab tradition called the mahr a male version of the dowry. The bridegroom pays the Bride s father a sum of Money for a lavish wedding with some left Over Lor furniture. When Oil prices quadrupled in the mid-1970s, the amount of Money in a mahr went up i them ranging from $2,000 Loas much As $100,000. But with Oil prices Down these Days and individual incomes falling with them Arab men find the Price of native woman too High and they Ara wooing foreigners. A dismayed King valid of saudi Arabia has put his personal prestige behind an Effort to halt the trend and the United Arab emirates and Kuwait plan to offer soft Loans ranging irom $4.000 to 115,000. For men who become betrothed to Arab women. It cot a minimum of about $100 Lor a Gulf Man to marry a Girt from India or Pakistan $500 for a filipina and about �1,000 Lor an egyptian said Toussel Hassan a shopkeeper in Bahrain who keeps up with such things. An estimated 5.5 million indians pakistanis sri lankan filipinos and egyptians work in lha Gulf Region and about 1.9 million of them Are women. In the Days before Oil a mahr could be two female camels to As Many As 100. Virgins invariably command two or three times More than widows or divorced women. The size of the mahr usually is worked out in delicate negotiations commonly. The family of the prospective Groom asks in extremely Subtle style How much the family of the Bride thinks the mahr should be. Strenuous and protracted haggling usually follows and sometimes intermediaries Are called in. Leaders of some of the More traditional Arab states on the arabian Peninsula Only became concerned since foreign women entered the picture saudi Leader maintain that marrying foreign women causes Arab men to develop ties to their wivas1 people rather than their own undermining the traditional Asabi Yeh spirit of  King fahd encourages Early marriage among his people to increase population growth and preserve Arab Hegemony in his desert kingdom. Although it is larger than Western Europe saudi Arabia has Only 11 million people and More than a Quarter of them Are foreigners Sultan taboos of Oman has condemned the Rise in mahr costs As an evil that can destroy  Many arabs would like Lodo away with expensive rituals bul the custom of big weddings is deeply ingrained in the Arab lifestyle even among the poor. For Many families a big mahr is a Mark of status and prestige. King fahd recently told saudi students who study abroad to resist the temptation to marry non Arab women. Saudi girls have no problems with their morals and Virtues they Are no less Beautiful than women elsewhere in the world but Good looks Are not everything the King told a group of students in Jidida so Why should one look for a Wile abroad at his Behest Al Daw Asir tribal leaders in Southern Cairo s new metro by Dalia Bligh associated press he world s newest subway system is having growing pains and is under fire Iram the press or shortcomings but its operators say usage is heavy and increasing opened to the Public on oct. 1, the $300 Milton French built and financed subway covers 2.8 Miles under downtown Cairo and connects Wilh existing surface track South of the City the underground portion terminates at the main railway station on Ramses Square in Central Cairo and Sayeda Zeinab District to the South. When president Hosni Mubarak and Jacques Chirac the French Premier inaugurated the subway on sept. 27. Lha president described Ilas a dream come Ira for egyptians. Newspaper columnists compared the first subway in Africa or Trie Middle East to the great achievements of Egypt s Par construction of the Giza pyramids the Suez canal the Aswan High dam. So far in f subway remains a curiosity to some egyptians but there s no Way to Tell How Many of the 400.000 to 450,000 daily metro users Are Riding 11 for the Novelty Abdelmoneim Emara senior operations Engineer at the general authority Tor subways said the goal is 600,000 daily riders within a matter of months i m just Riding the metro to take a took at it and show it to the children said Madiha homed a housewife with two Young daughters in Tow. After being inundated with so much news about 11 on television and in the papers i had to come and see. Bul i won t use in much another rider Farmer Ahmed Salem wearing a Galabina the Robe common in Rural Egypt said he was in Cairo on business and had decided to take a ride on the Melro. I told my children that i would take a ride and Tell them All Aboul it he said. It s vary Nice and now i am the Only one in my Village who s Ridden in for six years cairene coped with monumental traffic jams As the heart of the cily was Lorn apart. Inconveniences were borne courageously however As officials promised the Long awaited Melro would decrease traffic congestion by 30 percent by getting a half million people a Day off the roads. But the Bloom was off the Rose just two weeks after the first passenger boarded a train. Road traffic remained a mess blamed on still unfinished metre digging and Street diversions. Cairo govern want Owid newspapers have railed against the system s inadequacies since in opened decrying Waits Between trains of up to 20 minutes rather than the scheduled six and criticizing a Lack of rest rooms in the stations. They also have taken managers to task because of a chronic shortage Al ticket Booths of 25-Piaster 12-Cenl tickets that forces Short haul passengers either to Fork out 40 plasters 20 cents or find other transportation. Most of the system s trains already were in use on the surface before the subway was built and the sliding doors of Many Don t close while the train is in operation. This is a common if dangerous practice above ground bul it becomes More perilous on a train speeding through narrow darkened underground saturday november 14, 1987 the stars and stripes saudi Arabia recently limited Mahrs to a maximum of 40,000 riyals $10.810 Lor a Virgin and 30,000 riyals $8,108 for a widow or a divorced woman. The chieftains also agreed that every husband taking a second wife should placate his first Wilo by giving her 5,000 riyals 11.351 moslem Are allowed to have As Many As four wives. We Hope All clans will abide by these Loirro lations to eradicate the phenomenon of High Mahrs and expensive wedding  the newspaper Al Madina quoted the Al Daw Asir chieftain. She Showa ii no do Sari. As saying. Prince Faisal bin Bandar governo of saudi Arabia s Asir province backed tribal accords cutting Mara to a symbolic gift of no Mere than 1,000 riyals $270. King fahd has Orcla de his minister of Rural and municipal affairs to Speed the construction of wedding Halls to be available free to citizens. He also ordered that wedding ceremonies be Brief and not be allowed to extend to the last third of the night under any circumstance the official saudi press Agency has reported. It said the King else banned photography at weddings. Such practices Are Ullery unacceptable and disapproved of irrespective of whether the photographer is male or female he was quoted As saying. Pictorial representation is deemed and islamic in saudi Arabia a theocratic state. A committee of eminent islamic scholars has been formed in saudi Arabia 1o collect donations for a marriage assistance fund the Arab news daily reported recently. It said the fund would give 25,000 riyals $6,756 to any saudi Man who wanted to marry a saudi woman but could not Alford to pay the Cost. Tunnels air gushing against passengers inside the crowded carriages Only two of i to stations on the surface have been refurbished and the rest Are run Down and dirty. Once a train surfaces the Engineer rarely stops blowing the Horn to warn pedestrians and animals to gel off the tracks. And while the no smoking Rule is enforced strictly in five new underground stations it s largely ignored inside the trains. Not everything about the metro system is negative however. The underground stations decorated in pharaonic and islamic motifs still have a Brand new sparkle. Policemen stand at 10-Yard intervals armed with plastic Batons to enforce cleanliness Security and rules Banning smoking. The policemen also have another chore answering questions irom tens of thousands of baffled strap hangers a mixture of working people and Well heeled egyptians Middle class families end peasants. A ride on the subway demonstrated the dilemmas of people More accustomed to clinging precariously to crammed buses than speeding through the underground aboard silent trains. After a sprint Down a Long corridor a Young Soldier barely managed to squeeze through the closing metro doors panting he explained to fellow riders he was tale Lor an appointment at Ramses Square a passenger Lold him he was headed in the wrong direction a woman in a peasant s Long Black velvet Galabina surrendered her ticket to a policeman standing beside the automatic ticket machine who put in into the slow. Instead of pushing through the bar and walking in. She proceeded to crawl under it. Page 17