{"id":17758,"date":"2026-10-08T09:46:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T07:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=17758"},"modified":"2026-10-08T11:05:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:05:25","slug":"marriage-costs-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/marriage-costs-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"A Home Within Reach: How Rising Prices Are Reshaping Marriage in Egypt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat should we start with?\u201d Mai Badawi asks her fianc\u00e9, Amr Gamal, as they discuss furnishing their future apartment with Zawia3. They have decided to make those choices together, away from the expectations of relatives and the pressure to have everything ready before the wedding.<\/p>\n

Amr, in his late twenties, no longer imagines waiting until the apartment has a bedroom suite, living-room furniture, appliances and air conditioning before marrying Mai. Each new item on their list brings another price to reckon with. Their response has been to start crossing things off.<\/p>\n

Figures from Egypt\u2019s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS)<\/a> show that marriage contracts fell by 2.5% in 2024, to approximately 936,700, from 961,200 in 2023. Those figures alone do not establish why marriages declined or measure the contribution of rising prices.<\/p>\n

Inflation has nevertheless changed the cost of everyday life and of setting up a household. World Bank data<\/a> put average annual consumer-price inflation at approximately 5% in 2020 and 5.2% in 2021, rising to 13.9% in 2022 and 33.9% in 2023, the highest rate in that period, before easing to 28.3% in 2024 and 14.1% in 2025. Slower inflation means prices are rising more slowly; it does not mean they have returned to their earlier levels.<\/p>\n

Listen to an excerpt from Zawia3\u2019s interview with a woman preparing to marry (Arabic audio).<\/a> The original player notes that the speaker\u2019s voice has been altered.<\/p>\n

Mahmoud El-Hawary and Aya Mohamed, who are engaged and preparing to marry, are working through the same choices. With housing, furniture, appliances and gold becoming more expensive, furnishing lists that once seemed ordinary have become harder to afford. Their agreements increasingly revolve around what their budget can sustain.<\/p>\n

Mahmoud says the things he imagined buying around five years ago are not necessarily what he needs now. Rather than furnishing several rooms at once, he believes they can begin with the essentials and add other things later.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of buying a bedroom suite, a children\u2019s bedroom, living-room furniture and a salon suite, I can make do with the bedroom and salon furniture I will use now,\u201d he tells Zawia3.<\/p>\n

Aya describes postponing some purchases as an option families can consider. Mahmoud interrupts to draw a distinction: \u201cIt is no longer a choice; it has become a necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is no longer a choice; it has become a necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahmoud El-Hawary, on postponing some household purchases.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Aya, the change is about more than how many pieces of furniture they buy. It also involves deciding what counts as essential. She puts a microwave, air fryer, dishwasher and air conditioner among the extras they can do without. A refrigerator, washing machine, cooker and water heater are much harder to remove from the list.<\/p>\n

Even when choosing smaller household items, she now weighs buying more at a lower quality against buying fewer, better-quality items. Her aim is less to make the apartment look complete at any cost than to buy things that will be useful and last.<\/p>\n

Listen to an excerpt from Zawia3\u2019s conversation with two people preparing to marry (Arabic audio).<\/a> The original player notes that the voices have been altered.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe will get through it together\u201d<\/h2>\n

The families of Rahma El-Sayed and Mohamed Abdel Moneim recognize the burden that housing and furnishing costs place on young couples. Both families have relaxed some of their demands to help the marriage go ahead. For them, that need not mean abandoning a right or a responsibility.<\/p>\n

Rahma says rising prices affect both partners. Women who work, she adds, are increasingly aware of the relationship between income and the cost of an apartment, furniture and household equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will not make things more difficult. Getting married is already difficult, and a woman will not decide to add more burdens to something that is already hard,\u201d Rahma says.<\/p>\n

In these accounts, inflation is prompting not only couples but also their families to renegotiate what can wait and what must be available from the outset.<\/p>\n

Hassan Abdel Fattah, who recently married, tells Zawia3 that higher prices affect both partners. In his view, economic pressure has made women\u2019s contributions to setting up a home more substantial, with women and their families helping shoulder the cost of getting started.<\/p>\n

\u201cLow-income families turn to instalments and buy things gradually, even if that means paying higher prices and taking on cheques, trust receipts and debts that continue for years after marriage. Some families may also borrow from lenders charging high interest,\u201d Hassan says.<\/p>\n

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