QUEUES IN FRONT OF CIVILIAN REGISTRY OFFICE
Lusine Musayelyan
KarabakhOpen
12-02-2008 11:29:49
The Beglaryans have been living together for three years but postponed
registration of their marriage all the time. Recently they decided to
prepare all the documents to go the civilian registry office. "We
wanted to have our marriage registered to get assistance from
government," says the husband.
The government of Karabakh has launched a program to encourage people
to get married. It pays 300 thousand drams to each newlywed couple
from January 1. Time will show whether it will help overcome the
demographic consequences of the war.
The war affected the lives of young girls whose potential fiancés
either got killed in the war or had to leave. These girls are now 30
to 38 years old.
Irina Soghomonyan, 32, is not married. She says she did not get married
because of the war because her peers got killed or become disabled,
and those who survived are already married. Irina says she would
like to have a baby not to be alone when she grows old but it is
too expensive. "Besides, it is not perceived appropriately in tiny
Karabakh. They will say anything. You have to get ready for this
decision," Irina says.
Davit Karabekyan, a Karabakh-based sociologist, thinks part of
young men got killed in the war, many lost their health and cannot
get married.
There is one more important thing. Most young men do not get married
because either they are jobless or they do not earn enough to sustain
a family. And of course they cannot buy a house. The mortgage loan
program with which the government has been "threatening" young families
for over a year has not been launched yet. Although the government
says to subsidize 6 percent of 12 percent on mortgage loan, a young
man has to earn at least 300 dollars a month to be eligible, which
is a rather high salary in Karabakh.
Sasun Petrosyan, 30, is not going to get married. He says he would
like to but the prospects are too hazy. "Nothing is wrong with girls,
but I have no house, no permanent job," Sasun says, who is a mechanist.
If you are not married yet at the age of 30, you are thought as
hopeless. Therefore, girls hurry to get married before they get 26.
"Although in Karabakh the best age for getting married is 19-21, I
am 22 and I do not feel uneasy about being single," Lusine Gasparyan
says. "Moreover, I am not going to get married for some more years. I
need time to do career but I have set a deadline for myself – 26. Now
my parents worry most about my marriage, and my grannies find a
fiancé for me every week."
In Karabakh villages people get married at a young age. "In our
village girls get married at the age of 17 to 22. I guess there are
no more single girls of this age," we were told at the village of Mets
Taghlar. Young women aged 22-23 already have two or three children.
Many couples in Karabakh have been postponing their marriage for a very
banal reason – lack of money. Perhaps the government assistance is on
time. The government has assigned 450 million drams for assistance
to newlyweds in 2008. In mid-January a record number of marriages
were registered at the civilian registry office of Stepanakert –
50. Although in 2007, after the government assistance was announced,
the number of registered marriages went down by 161.
–Boundary_(ID_k0uuI4zeYL0EzY6NFuYBSw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
