Over the Hari Raya holidays, one of my children met a young Malay salesman and asked why he was working over the holidays. The answer was a bit surprising, and rather sad.
The salesman said hes getting married and needs to earn as much money as possible to pay for the wedding. Thats understandable. Marriage is one of the costliest events in many young peoples lives. The amounts he mentioned were not inconsequential, and it looked like hed have to spend at least a years salary on it, perhaps even more.
Work through as many Hari Raya holidays as he wished, but in all likelihood, he wouldnt earn enough to pay for the wedding, and may be in debt for a long while after.
The amounts set by his brides parents ran into the low five figures, which was high given his likely income. On top of that hed have to pay for his own side of the wedding feasts, gifts, clothes etc.
Ive been to some really fancy Malay weddings, some clearly by families which could afford them. Good for them, especially for those (rather rare ones) who have some good taste to go with the opulence.
I know of people who actually renovated their house to prepare for their childs wedding. Perhaps they could afford the renovation and the wedding too again, good for them.
But I think we all know of many people from all sides of Malaysian society for whom a wedding is often a step into debt and penury.
How it used to be
When I was growing up, weddings were usually a kampung-wide celebration, often measured by how many food servings were prepared or how many cows or buffaloes were slaughtered.
Before the wedding, thered be a meeting where division of labour was agreed upon who would do the cooking, the serving, the greetings and at the bottom of the kampung social hierarchy, whod do the washing up.
I was too young to be assigned anything, but Id always follow the fun crew those tasked with building the tents where guests were served food.
We didnt have the convenience of the rented tents of today. We had to go to the hills and cut down bamboo, to build the tents from scratch with coconut fronds and tarps.
Tables, chairs, cooking pots, pans and the hundreds of plates, cups, saucers and cutlery needed would come from the mosque, while the cost of labour would only amount to some pocket money. No cooking gas back then, just firewood from fallen trees around us.
Free entertainment
The occasional well-to-do families would have a band at their weddings, often local kampung Beatles-wannabes with a few electric guitars and a cheap drum set. These would be the grander weddings everybody would try not to miss. You might not have been invited to the wedding itself, but the music shows were open to all.
Weddings didnt cost too much unless you set out to show off. There certainly were enough who did that, often pawning gold and silver to pay for it, though not that often because not many actually had gold and silver to pawn.
Most people then did kerja kampung or kampong jobs, and very few earned enough or were credit-worthy enough to get any loans save for from immediate families, which in most instances werent much better off.
Wisdom of my father
Weddings were often one of the few opportunities for our fishing kampung folk to eat meat. Before we had electricity, we had the occasional excitement when the kerosene lamps occasionally set something perhaps even a tent on fire.
My father once told me if he wasnt around to give my sister away, I was to set her dowry at a reasonably high level (because dowry money goes directly to the bride), but not set any amount at all for the hantaran, the expenses the groom is supposed to pay the brides family.
He said were not in the business of selling daughters. If the groom can afford a big wedding, well and good. Otherwise, have one that suits his pocket.
My low-cost wedding
I got married after Id been working for a few years. Between taking care of myself and also my elderly parents, I managed to put aside some savings. I paid for the ceremony at my own home, and part of the ceremony at my in-laws home.
It was a simple wedding, and I bet some nosey neighbours probably thought we should have splurged on a bigger wedding. Perhaps we could have been a bit more grand, but not by much.
Anyway, the nosey neighbours kept their counsel to themselves; to voice such sentiments to my father would be to invite a question about the legitimacy of their birth, and perhaps of their parents too. Hed always been a maverick, something he inherited from me.
On being a killjoy
I still have a few photos showing me dressed in an ill-fitting suit from the photographers shop, stains and all. Cue the sad music Or perhaps not I dont remember me or anybody else then or now being sad about that.
Im one of those people who thinks you shouldnt celebrate too much when you graduate. Certainly, take some joy from it but thats just the beginning of your real life. There are many years of challenges ahead for which you must gird yourself.
Im always skittish with beginnings, and this applies to weddings too. The real tests are yet to come, and celebrations are when youre quite sure youve played a good game towards the end of the inning.
Perhaps its a good thing for the wedding industry that there arent many killjoys like me. Can you imagine how much impact people like me would have on our GDP? But hey, on the other hand, we wouldnt be clogging up the bankruptcy courts either.
The next generation
There are actually some other killjoys like me my own kids. The two eldest got married in their thirties, which they arranged, handled and paid for all by themselves.
How much did their weddings cost me? Zero. I paid nothing for their very simple weddings. Id have helped if asked, but I wasnt, and was happy the kids felt they wanted to handle everything based on what they could afford, and I was very proud of their independence.
Theyve earned the right to bore their own children about how they got married and paid and handled everything on their own without any help from the stingy grandpa. Im sure theyll thank me for that one day.
Theyll have many years of trials and tribulations ahead of them, when money in the bank would be more important than photos and videos of a grand wedding. And they wouldnt have to work even during Hari Raya holidays to pay for a grand wedding thatll just run up a huge debt.
Or they could, if they so want to. Its their life after all, not mine. They, and not anybody else, not even me, get to decide whats right for them.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.