Khaama Press, Father Demands Crippling Dowry, Daughter Ingests Poison in Northern Afghanistan, 27 July 2022 “(…) Heavy dowries and extravagant wedding costs have led to family conflicts in Afghanistan’s traditional society, and young people are concerned about marriage’s high cost.
The bride’s family has numerous expectations, and the demands from the groom’s family are so exorbitant that a person cannot afford to be married for many years, according to a groom who married in a mass wedding in central Afghanistan earlier this month and asked to remain unidentified.
According to sources, a single-day reservation at a wedding hall costs between $10,000 and $20,000, and several engaged couples were forced to wait for years due to the financially crippling expense given the unemployment rate.”
Al Jazeera, Afghan women deplore Taliban’s new order to cover faces in public, 8 May 2022
"As an unmarried woman who looks after her mother, Marzia does not have a mahram. She is the sole
breadwinner in her small family. “I am unmarried, and my father died very long ago, and I look after my mother,”
she said. “The Taliban killed my brother, my only mahram, in an attack 18 years ago. Would they now have me
borrow a mahram for them [to] punish me next time?” she asked.
Marzia has repeatedly been stopped by the Taliban while travelling on her own to work in her university, which is a violation of an earlier edict that forbids women from travelling alone. “They regularly stop the taxi I am in, asking where my mahram is,” Marzia said."