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Partners
Young people in Saudi are under enormous pressure to get married as soon as they leave school, and many still want it for themselves, too. Pressure comes primarily from the family which, unlike in most of the Western world, is still seen as the most important social institution. There's also pressure from the powerful religious establishment, which fears that unmarried women might violate the Muslim ban on premarital sex.
So many singles
In Saudi, according to one Saudi sociologist, there are currently three million single women of marriageable age in the Kingdom, a figure that is expected to reach four million by the end of next year. Surprisingly, about 1.5 million of these single Saudi women are over 30. It's referred to here as the 'spinsterhood phenomenon' and is a source of deep concern in a country where a woman's life isn't considered validated until she is married and raising children.
Attitudes to the unmarried are reflected in remarks such as those of Sheik Ibrahim al-Khodeiri, a Supreme Court judge, to the Al Riyadh newspaper, that "a woman has a shelf life" that lasts only as long as she can have children. Some Saudis blame women for wanting to get a university education and work for a few years, taking them past the desired marriage age of 20. Others feel that Saudi men are influenced in their notion of the ideal woman by the celebrities they see on satellite TV in the decade it has been legal here.
Despite the Kingdom's oil wealth, the enormous population growth and rampant unemployment means many Saudi men simply cannot afford to get married (in the style their parents did) and this in turn contributes to the number of women waiting in the wings.
For one, there are the costs the bridegroom faces: an average middle-class dowry of R50 000 to R100 000 and a wedding party costing thousands more. Sociologist Wafaa Al-Saadi writes in the Arab News that it's a result of girls' parents setting too high a standard for the young men who wish to marry their daughters. Girls' parents ask for large dowries, high salaries and fancy houses as a way to guarantee pleasant lives for their daughters. Tribes and families in some regions are trying to combat this by legally lowering the dowry rates.
To make matters worse for Saudi women, there are between 10 and 15 marriages a month of Saudi men to Indonesian women (brought in to work as housemaids), a rate that sometimes reaches 25 per month. Indonesian girls are popular, often as second wives, because they are Muslim, take better care of the house and children, are "less demanding" than some Saudi women, or, in cases where Saudi women work and have lots of social engagements that take them out of the home, the husband turns to the maid for comfort, company, etc. Saudi men would also marry the housemaid if she became pregnant by him, to avoid scandal, and others marry them as a token of appreciation for taking care of him and the family.
The dating game and divorce
Dating is something that, on the surface at least, doesn't exist in Saudi Arabia. Strict Islamic laws forbid contact between unmarried couples and those who dare try to meet outside of the parental home risk punishment should they be caught by the religions police. But with more than half the Saudi population being under 25, keeping the sexes apart has become a nightmare.
Traditionally, when a child is ready for marriage (normally once he or she has finished school), a network of families and friends would transmit snippets of information about a young woman’s character, and this would attract a suitable suitor. A good reputation still is the most important attribute a young maiden could possess, and good financial standing and education makes a suitable husband. In most cases, and certainly in the past, family pressure would force the two into a marriage, whether they liked each other or got a chance to get to know each other or not.
But if this worked ten years ago, it doesn't anymore. In 2005 a study conducted by the Saudi Ministry of Planning stated that divorce has risen by 20% over previous years and that 65% of arranged marriages end in divorce. The study states there are roughly 33 divorces a day in the Kingdom, reaching a total number of approximately 13 000 divorces per year out of 70 000 marriages.
How to fix this? For starters, the Government recently passed a law that forbade forced marriages. Grand mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh (who heads the Council of Senior Ulema)) said forced marriage is against Islamic law and those responsible for it should be jailed. He said fathers who coerce daughters into in marriage should be jailed and not released "until they change their minds".
Technology-enabled dating and matchmaking
But it doesn't make finding a suitable partner any easier. The local newspapers are rife with reports of gaggles of testosterone-fuelled men trailing women like a herd of tomcats in the streets, hoping to attract their attention and get their phone numbers. Sometimes they'll excitedly stick their phone numbers against the car window, hoping the girl will take it down and phone them, or, when on foot, they'll flick a piece of paper with their phone number at a group of passing women.
Bluetooth technology has created more headaches for the conservatives and the religious police are helpless to fight it. Saudi youths would hang around at traffic lights in their cars, or food courts or shopping malls where it's a little more difficult to keep the sexes apart (often, young males aren't allowed to enter shopping malls because they make such pests of themselves), activate the Bluetooth function in their phone and then press the search button to see who else has the feature on within a 10-metre range. They'll get a list of ID names of anyone in the area – names, mostly in Arabic, often chosen to allure, such as poster boy, sensitive girl, lion heart, kidnapper of hearts, little princess or prisoner of tears. The guy can then click on a name, and, if she's willing, communicate safely with that person, judging her possible good looks by the cuteness of her Bluetooth ID.
The other booming partner-finding activity is of course online dating and matchmaking. Although many online dating websites are blocked in the Kingdom, savvy Saudis find a way around it, often to hook up with singles from other countries, especially Canada and America. They also go to chatrooms that are not as easy to control. The problem for girls finding willing young men this way, however, is ultimately marrying their foreign love, which is still only allowed with special dispensation from King Abdullah.
I recently caused a lot of trouble between a Canadian convert to Islam and a Saudi girl – he told me he was hopelessly in love, but unsure about Saudi women and wanted to know whether he'd fit in here. I told him of the possible difficulties; he broke off the relationship with her citing Laura of Arabia as his warning source; she came down on me with a ton of bricks; I said sorry, but I just gave him generalised facts, and the two disappeared into the ether.
Arabic online matchmaking websites are also hugely popular, such as www.alzawaj.com, www.zwajnet.com, www.sendbad.net, www.arabsgate.com and www.zojah.com, some happily accepted by the religious establishment.
I read in the faithful Arab News (which sadly no longer offers content online since they launched a subscription drive), that almost 85 percent of the marriage applicants are men; some are as young as 21. And many women seeking a partner on these websites don't mind a month-long misyar marriage, an often secret arrangement that is perfectly legal in the Kingdom (see below).
Some other young people opt instead for a trip to a bricks and mortar matchmaking office, a reasonably new phenomenon here, and that helps young men and women find a suitable and often 'less expensive' partner. One such office is The Charity Project for Helping Youth Get Married, a Jeddah matchmaking office that has been operating for three years, and tries to match men and women who have similar specifications and requirements. Girls, divorced women or widows from 18 to 35 and sometimes above, apply to the office, and most of them don't care much about the financial status of the groom.
Saudis hold different opinions regarding these matchmaking methods. Rami Hassan, a 30-year-old Saudi bachelor, says "I think if I was living abroad, I would have no shame in finding a wife through matchmaking offices or websites since it's legal in our religion. However, in our society, people wouldn't accept such a thing that is not in our tradition, especially as we live in a conservative environment – and we are so tied to our traditions."
I'm going to stop right here. In my next column I'll elaborate on some other aspects of marriage in Saudi, such as marrying close family members and the health problems it creates, child brides, mass weddings, and Summer or 'misyar' marriages that offer a legal solution to having an extra marital affair.
If there's anything in particular you'd like to know about life in Saudi Arabia, or if you'd like to comment on this article, send me an email at lauraofarabia@gmail.com.
South Africans in Saudi, pop in at the South Africans in Saudi Expat forum where you can post questions or answers and connect with others in your area of the Kingdom.
Laura of Arabia
The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard further than the roar of a lion.
Arabic proverb
