Weddings Make Comeback - Since Saddam's Downfall, Iraqis Are Tying The Knot In Record Numbers

San Mateo County Times, Washington Post ^ | October 25, 2003 | Karl Vick

[Ex-Dem]

Weddings make comeback

Since Saddam's downfall, Iraqis are tying the knot in record numbers

By Karl Vick, Washington Post

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The fat man in the parking lot of the Babylon Hotel was dancing like a bulldog in a cartoon, index finger twirling in the air, hips swiveling below. A snare drum snapped out a rhythm from the desert. A young man with a red face coaxed a sinuous arabesque from a battered trumpet. And here came the bride.

Wrestling her hoop skirt out from the back seat of a decorated BMW, she wore a henna tattoo on her upper arm, a dusting of glitter on the base of her throat and a mask of hardened white powder on a china doll face frozen either by the makeup or the scene unfolding on a patch of asphalt already crowded with three other weddings, each as raucous as hers.

In Iraq, weddings are back.

Freed of an onerous Baath Party bureaucracy that sought to regulate even the most fundamental aspects of Iraqi life -- such as who married whom -- Iraqis lately are tying the knot in numbers not seen in recent memory.

Before President Saddam Hussein was toppled, the ruling party imposed a complex and strict set of matrimonial rules on Iraqis, particularly on members of the military. And since military service was compulsory for Iraqi men, the effects were pervasive. Now civil servants estimate at least twice as many couples are registering for marriage as were a year ago.

[Ex-Dem]

Congrats. (And watch out for that celebratory gunfire!)

[Grig]

And you don't have to worry about someone showing up to rape the bride anymore.

[Ex-Dem]

Ugh, no kidding. Those stories about Uday showing up at a wedding to rape the bride, and then the bride and groom subsequently committing suicide... Thoroughly heinous stuff.

[jocon307]

Great post, I urge everyone to read the whole article. It's very sweet and well written.

We have really done the Iraqi people a great turn. We didn't do it specifically to help them, but they are helped. Let's hope they have better, longer memories than the French.

And good luck to all the Iraqi newlyweds!