Reading Your Kabin Nama Column by Column

The register is turned around on the table. Someone's uncle is on the phone in the corridor. The bride's mother is counting chairs. The kazi's assistant puts a finger on a line near the bottom of the page and says, sign here. Everybody signs, the register closes, the tea arrives, and the room moves on.

That page is now the only document that will speak for this marriage for the next fifty years. If a question ever arises about den mohor, maintenance, inheritance, a passport, a spouse visa or a divorce, a court will not ask what the two families felt. It will read the form. Here is the kabin nama, with the columns explained one at a time.

What the kabin nama actually is

A Muslim marriage in Bangladesh is registered by a licensed nikah registrar — the kazi — under the Muslim Marriages and Divorces (Registration) Act 1974. Each registrar holds a licence for a defined area and keeps a bound volume. Your marriage is an entry in that volume, and what you take home is a certified copy of it, the nakol.

The printed form carries 25 numbered columns. Most are administrative. Six of them decide almost everything that can go wrong later. If you read nothing else, read columns 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 21.

Columns 1 to 12: who, when, and who watched

• Column 1 — the ward, union or town, thana and district where the marriage took place, which decides whose jurisdiction the entry belongs to.
• Columns 2 and 4 — the bridegroom and his father, and the bride and her father, with addresses.
• Columns 3 and 6 — the age or date of birth of each party. This is not a formality. The legal minimum is 21 for men and 18 for women.
• Column 5 — whether the bride is a maiden, a widow or a divorcee. It is stated plainly because it affects iddah and sometimes the mohor.
• Columns 7 to 10 — the vakil appointed by each side, if any, and the witnesses to that appointment. In most Bangladeshi weddings this is how consent travels between the two rooms.
• Column 11 — the witnesses to the marriage itself, with fathers' names and addresses. These are the people a court can call.
• Column 12 — the date the marriage was contracted, which is not the same as the date of registration in column 24.

None of this is dramatic, but errors here are the most common reason a kabin nama fails later. Every name should match the NID letter for letter, in the spelling used on passports and certificates. A bride whose name is spelt one way on her NID and another on her kabin nama will meet that problem again at an embassy, a bank and a land office.

Column 13: the amount of den mohor

This is the most consequential number on the page. From the moment ijab and qabul are complete, the den mohor recorded here is a debt owed by the husband to the wife personally. Not to her family, not to the household.

Write it in figures and in words, and never leave it blank to be filled in later at the office. If your family quotes mohor in bhori of gold, have the equivalent written carefully, because a figure that sounded modest five years ago is a much larger obligation now. How to arrive at a fair number is covered in How Much Den Mohor Should You Set.

Columns 14, 15 and 16: what is prompt, and what was really paid

These three columns matter more than the headline total, and they are the ones families skip.

• Column 14 — how much of the mohor is prompt (মুয়াজ্জাল, payable now) and how much deferred (মুওয়াজ্জাল, payable later, or on divorce or death). Tk 5 lakh fully prompt and Tk 5 lakh with Tk 20,000 prompt are two completely different marriages. The mechanics are in Prompt vs Deferred Den Mohor.
• Column 15 — whether any portion of the mohor was actually paid at the time, and how much. This is where the most damaging entry in Bangladeshi family law gets made: "paid in full" written down when nothing changed hands. Once that is signed, the bride must prove a negative, and courts start from the document.
• Column 16 — whether property or ornaments were given in place of part of the mohor, with a description and an agreed valuation. Jewellery from the groom's family is often quietly counted against the mohor here without the bride being told.

Column 17: the empty box almost every couple wastes

Column 17 is for special conditions, and in most Bangladeshi kabin namas it is left blank. That is a wasted opportunity rather than a neutral choice.

Conditions families do write in include where the couple will live, that the wife may continue her studies or her employment, or a schedule for paying the deferred mohor. A condition has to be lawful and consistent with the marriage contract to be worth anything, so if you intend to write something substantial, have a family lawyer word it beforehand rather than improvising at the table.

Columns 18 and 19: the right of divorce

Column 18 asks whether the husband has delegated the power of divorce to the wife, and on what conditions. This is talaq-e-tafweed, and it is the most useful line on the form for a Bangladeshi woman. Where it says yes, she can end the marriage herself through the same notice procedure a husband uses, without his agreement and without a court case. Where it is blank or marked no, she is left with khula or a judicial route, both slower. The difference is explained in Khula and Talaq.

Column 18 is filled in while nobody is looking, in perhaps ten seconds. Those ten seconds have decided the next several years for a very large number of women in this country. Read it before you sign. If you are already married, find your nakol and read it tonight.

Column 19 is its mirror: whether the husband's own right of divorce has been curtailed.

Columns 20 to 25: existing wives, the officiant and the fee

• Columns 21 and 22 — whether the bridegroom has an existing wife, and if so whether he has permission from the Arbitration Council under the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, with its reference and date. Read this. It is the bride's one formal chance to see the answer in writing.
• Columns 23 and 24 — who solemnised the marriage, and the date of registration.
• Column 25 — the registration fee. There is an official scale tied to the den mohor amount, and knowing it protects you from being overcharged. See Marriage Registration in Bangladesh.

Five minutes before anyone signs

1. Ask for the register to be turned towards you. Nobody has ever been refused this.
2. Check every name and date against the NIDs on the table.
3. Read columns 13, 14 and 15 aloud. Nothing is recorded as paid unless it has been paid.
4. Look at column 17 and decide, deliberately, whether it stays empty.
5. Make sure column 18 says what the couple agreed it should say.
6. Fix a date to collect the certified copy, and keep the bride's copy with the bride.

If a name or address is already wrong, it is corrected through the registrar who holds the volume, with supporting documents; there is a clear walkthrough of the correction process here. If the copy is lost or damaged, a fresh certified copy can be issued from the register, and the procedure is explained here.

The conversation belongs before the kazi arrives

Columns go wrong because they were decided in the last ten minutes rather than the first ten weeks. Families who talk honestly about money, work and living arrangements long before a date is fixed have nothing to argue about at the signing table.

On amarjibon, every profile is NID-verified with a liveness selfie check, families can be part of the conversation from the beginning, and you can filter on what actually decides compatibility — observance, education, district of origin, and expectations about work and household. It is bilingual in English and বাংলা, and your phone number stays private until you choose to share it.

Related reading

• What Happens If Den Mohor Is Never Paid? Your Legal Options
• Walima: The Sunnah, the Etiquette and What It Should Cost
• Wedding Photography in Bangladesh: What to Pay and What to Ask For

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