TURKISH MARRIAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 9

TURKISH MARRIAGES.

HIT BY HARD TIMES.

YOUNG FOLK FIND SOLUTION. GIRLS ABDUCTED AND WED. . ISTANBUL, May .10. Turkey, in common with the rest of the world, is suffering more every day from the trade depression. The crisis is especially felt in the Smyrna district. With a poor crop selling at low prices and the greater part of the tobacco yield unsold—America, which is Turkey's chief customer, has . bought practically no tobacco this season—producers and labourers alike are poverty stricken, and the poorer they become and the less they export the greater is the burden of taxation imposed upon them by #a . benevolent Government.

Nothing is more indicative of changing conditions of life in the Smyrna district than the present attitude toward the business of getting married. When trade flourished, giving and taking in marriage were the occasion of prolonged festivities, continuing sometimes for three or four days. All the relatives on both sides gathered and acquaintances and dependents took-the fullest advantage of the lavish hospitality extended to them by the parents of the bridal pair. By the time the marriage ceremonies were completed, what with dowries and entertaining, the resources of the old folks were sadly depleted, but that mattered little, for money was easy come, easy go, and life was carefree. To-day very few parents are able to marry off their children in the old style.

Are sons and daughters to await the return of better times which never seem to come? They are too impatient, and in order to save their parents' faces young men abduct the young women of their choice and a few days later repair secretly to the Town Hall and get married quietly with little or no expense.

It is a bright solution and one which will doubtless commend itself to Western parents whose lot to-day is just as hard and who are just as keen to avoid advertising their troubles as their Eastern brethren.