AN AUGUR OF BETTER TIMES TO COME?

That freedom is breaking up that old gang of mine (with my apologies to The Four Aces)

Consider this something like the consumer confidence index...except this one includes men prancing with feathered poles...

But despite the unrest - or perhaps partly because of it - the number of marriages has nearly doubled since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.

"The people I see are not affected by insecurity - I've had a 75-percent increase," says Muhammad Jawad Talikh, a marriage judge in the neighborhood of Kerrada for the past 32 years. "Young people are wishing for a better life, so they come to me and get married."

Karim Haider, deputy clerk at the Kerrada marriage court, registered 1,460 marriages in all of 2002. From May 1 to the end of 2003 - just seven months - he clocked 1,468. "And it's still increasing, every day," he says, stamping a flutter of engagement papers with an official seal.

"This year, we've been having weddings here almost every day," says Thamer Salim, the manager of Mashriq, a wedding hall that caters primarily to Iraqi Christians. Mashriq's accountant, Raed Khalil, estimates that the hall has twice as many weddings as before the war, mostly couples in their twenties.