A Marriage Crisis in Egypt? How now?

This morning, Al jazeera carried this story from Egypt about what it called a marriage crisis. I was a bit confused.
In the Al jazeera story, there was this beautiful girl who said that "it reaches a certain age, where a lady thinks that there's more to life than love". In her words, at that age, you just look for a person to grow old with "as long as that person is well-mannered".

Then the reporter went into a match-making office and as I looked on, I couldn't help but marvel at the 'Westernness" in Egypt. Yeah, it's more America and less Saudi Arabia.

You know, in Egypt, weddings happen from Thursday night to Saturday night --yeah, night weddings, plenty of boat rides and vows are taken while cruising on the Nile. (That's the impression I got when I was there).

On the face of it, such ceremonies look grandiose, but when you look or even attend one, they are very simple weddings. But then, I asked a guy, how much it costs to get married and he told me that the first requirement is that you must have a flat (This was Cairo).

Okay, if you earn 200 egyptian pounds per month (Ksh3,000) and a flat costs 600 egyptian pounds per month, and you work two jobs, when will you stay in that flat.

The unemployment is just taking its toll and the guys are keeping off the beautiful ladies. Same thing in Nairobi, the same old story, no romance without finance. What a world!

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