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Female, single, over 30: Iraqis count cost of war
Only one of Nidal Haidar's six sisters is married. She has given up on ever getting hitched.
"Our chances of finding husbands are diminishing as we grow older," said Haidar, a 38-year-old dressmaker from Baghdad. "I am at an age where anyone who may propose to me will either be a widower or very, very old, but no one is really proposing to me since all the men now are looking for a rich or a young bride."
The war has had any number of hidden costs for Iraqis. One that few outside Iraq might notice or even consider a significant problem: More women are finding themselves over 30 and single after seven years of bloody turmoil that made marriage more difficult, killing many young men and blowing apart social networks.
In Iraq's conservative society, women are expected to be married in their teens or early 20s. Women who cross the 30-year threshold and are single face powerful social stigmas and live under heavy limitations.