Shadee Elmasry – Whats the IDEAL MAHR for a Happy Marriage
AI: Summary ©
The American public has diverse cultures and expectations, including the Shami tradition and conflict with the Shami culture. They use lawyers and counsel to negotiate and potentially damage relationships, while also experiencing issues with a woman who left them feeling in love with a man with a similar attitude. The situation ends with the brother wanting 100k and the woman requesting to go to medical school. They stress the importance of meeting personal boundaries and finding a balance between giving money and love, while also acknowledging the potential damage to relationships.
AI: Summary ©
The topic that's very widely discussed is Mahir.
And so on the topic of Mahir, something
that I found is that as an Egyptian
going to try to meet a Palestinian family.
Total different worlds.
Exactly.
They have different rules.
They have different expectations.
Very different.
All Shoem.
All Shoem and Egyptians have different ways of
getting married.
Yeah.
So how does, let's say a brother goes
and he proposes to a sister and his
goal is, he has his expectations of what
a Mahir looks like, but then the family
has very different expectations.
Yeah.
How do you, what's the best way to
try to navigate that?
There was one time the dads tried to
do it and they had a big fight.
Egyptian-Palestinian.
Right?
Big blow up.
Yeah.
Because again, the Palestinian, the Shami tradition, obviously
not speaking for everybody, but saying in general,
the general Shami tradition is it's all on
the husband.
The whole thing.
The whole Shebang.
You're not lifting a finger.
The Egyptian side does have a little bit
of a give and take where certain parties
will be held by you, certain by us,
and then certain things will be split like
that.
So those discussions, best to be done by
your lawyers, counsel, right?
You don't go in and have big negotiations
yourself.
You send your counsel to go and talk.
So where would the counsel be in this
situation?
So let's say your dad and her dad,
right?
Let them have a discussion on it.
Why?
Because that's the first go around.
If we're so far off, you don't want
to be so far off with her dad,
right?
And usually in most cases, a woman doesn't
negotiate her mahr.
She may talk to tell her, but she
doesn't directly negotiate her mahr, right?
She'll tell her dad what she wants, but
that's usually how it works.
You have them discuss it so that if
you're so far off, it's not you who's
far off.
And you could come in afterwards and say,
okay, sorry, my dad was way off.
Let's work this out and be the good
guy.
There's a reason why they send in two
interrogators.
They send a good cop and a bad
cop.
It's always better to have two people involved
so that one could do the stuff that
could potentially be damaging to you.
The dad can do that.
He can bear that.
Like I said earlier, he's the blocker, right?
For these potentially contentious discussions.
What about, okay, I heard there's two stories
that really kind of left me, especially having
recently been a part of these conversations or
had these conversations.
There's two stories that I heard, one of
them in Jersey, one of them in SoCal
that really kind of blew me away.
The first one in Jersey is that there's
a brother who, you know, him and him,
like he met her family.
Everything was going well.
They've been speaking for a few months.
Everything was well and dandy.
Then they started talking about mahr.
And the father didn't like the son or
didn't like the potential groom.
So he said, you know what, 150K mahr.
And so the brother was like, I'm in
love with this woman.
And she's in love with him?
Yeah.
Well, that's the problem right there.
You're in love first and then you get
your parents involved.
Why even waste your parents' time?
No, no.
They did everything.
Just get married and khalas.
They did everything the halal way at that
point.
He went through the wali in the beginning.
And he accepted him.
And he accepted him.
And he let him have the second meeting.
He let him have the second meeting.
Then that wali is a confused person.
Why would you let him have the second
meeting?
Right?
I don't know.
I think they were also trying to get
to know him at the same time.
Or is it that he passed the first
meeting.
He was good.
He was good.
And then by the time the wali figured
out that he's actually not good, they're already
in love with each other.
I think that's what happened.
Yeah.
That's an awkward situation.
Yeah.
So but what ended up happening in this
situation is that the brother kept going.
He was like, 150K mahr.
And so he came up with the 150K
over three years.
150 Egyptian pounds.
Which is what?
Like 30K.
Right?
Way less than that.
Way less than that.
3K.
Divided by 15.
No, but so he ended up raising, over
the course of three years he worked, and
then got the 150K for the mahr.
Obviously this isn't the ideal.
Yeah.
So how do you...
That's a great guy.
He's...
I hope they're very happy.
Because he earned it.
And the wali, he didn't say, okay, no,
I was just exaggerating?
He wanted to keep the daughter happy.
She needs 150K.
She needs 150K on the spot to be
happy.
No, no.
He wanted to...
Marry another woman.
He set this crazy bar.
Yeah.
And then expected, and was like, there's no
way that this guy is going to hit
this bar.
He's going to leave.
Like, I'm pricing him out of my daughter.
Yeah.
And then what ended up happening is that
he comes back a few years later.
He's like, hey, I got the 150K you
asked for.
And the daughter obviously didn't want this.
But the...
What's the father going to say at that
point?
Well, I personally find this wali to be
off in the way he handled the whole
thing.
That's not the way to do things.
So let's say the brother came to you
in this position.
He's like, Sheikh, they're asking for 150K.
Yeah.
What do you tell him?
I tell him...
I ask him, what is the dad's profession?
Is he a real estate developer in Manhattan?
Because that's a very low mahr if that's
the case, right?
Let's say he's upper middle class.
Upper middle class.
Then someone needs to talk to that guy.
He's either telling you, leave.
It's giving you a hint to leave.
Or we can talk to him and wake
him up a little bit.
Okay.
So that's why, again, why would you do
something so difficult alone?
Right?
You can utilize, leverage the people that you
know.
Your imams, your friends.
To situations like this where we'd say, talk
to the guy and get him back onto
earth.
Okay.
With this mahr.
So there is the opportunity for outside kind
of intervention when you're talking about mahr.
Of course.
It's a negotiation like anything else.
Yeah.
This other story.
I'm a big fan of this story.
Yeah.
It was a...
There was a brother, again, very interested in
the sister.
Did everything the halal way.
She was the one who set the bar
for the mahr.
That's makrooh, by the way.
Is it?
Like for the prophet, he said, the best
woman is one who is easy going with
the mahr.
Okay.
It's like a bad taste almost.
I think she left a very bad taste.
She asked for 100k.
If the dad does that, it's acceptable.
If the dad says, no, this is my
daughter.
You have to pay a lot of mahr.
A high mahr.
That's acceptable.
It's reasonable.
It's understandable.
Okay.
Anyway.
She said, I want 100k.
Okay.
She also said, I want to go to
medical school.
On his tab?
On his tab.
Okay.
And I don't want to work after I
graduate from medical school.
Well, what is the point of going to
medical school then?
Just to have the letters.
That's a really weird request.
But they loved each other.
They were very happy with each other.
She obviously loves something else about him, right?
What's his job?
What was his job?
Not enough to afford this.
I think he was a consultant or something.
I think she loves herself.
I want you to guess how this worked
out.
These are probably your friends who are cursing
me right now in Georgetown.
These are people I was very shocked to
hear these stories.
Okay.
Either way, they didn't work out.
No kidding.
Right?
Who is going to work out with such
a ridiculous request?
I'm going to disappear for four years, drain
half a million from your accounts, and then
not use it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think Jersey is different with the
stories that you hear coming out of Jersey.
That's Jersey.
I've heard a lot of really interesting things
about Mahdi here.
It's a very good method of education on
this subject.
Just go by stories, right?
To develop a norm here.
All right.
What else do you got?
I suppose to develop a norm, what do
you think a fair asking amount is?
Firstly, where is this girl?
She has advisors in her family?
Where is her dad and mom to say,
you're way off on this?
I think they're, again, in the position of
they want to keep their daughter happy.
You're asking for this much even if you're
going to be single for the rest of
your life?
If that's what you want to ask for,
ask for it.
And then there's parents who are actually being
parents and saying maybe this is a little
out of the realm of reality.
Some people spoil their kids.
You have to wake up a little bit
and be within a realm of reality.
By the way, that's why I said what
is their job?
Because if they're all multi-millionaires, $150,000
is a drop in the bucket.
It's expected.
If a millionaire family is proposing to another
millionaire family, that's nothing for them.
So it's orfi.
That's why I'm saying it's orfi.
But if you're saying a regular person that
you said upper middle class, then that would
be out of range.
Then the range would be $10,000 to
$50,000.
So in this situation, he was upper middle
class.
She was from a wealthy family.
So in this position, is this a fair
ask from her end to ask for this?
You have to meet in the middle because
you're not living your way.
You're not living his way.
Maybe you meet in the middle.
You have to meet in the middle somewhere.
That's the thing.
Some people, they care more about money than
love.
That's the truth.
There are people out there and I can
tell you from what other women have told
me.
I'm not judging the women.
I can't judge the women.
I don't know them.
But they have told me there are women.
All they care about is the material aspect
of life.
This life is going to be comfortable.
From here on, I will not worry about
another penny.
And I will have everything that I want.
And if he's here or he's not, it
doesn't make a difference.
The personal element is not.
Think of it what you want, but some
people are like that.
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