Marriage a la Mode
I found an article on the web that I thought was interesting. It’s a fictional piece about an Emirati (UAE) wedding. The article has it’s flaws. It’s written by a westerner, who is also a Christian (or at least a non-muslim), so she projects a few of her own cultural misconceptions and so forth. Also she manages to pack a lot of negative stereotypes into the same story. It’s unlikely that any one person would experience all of those same things. I want to post a link to it however, because it rings true on many counts as well.
Another caveat, Emirati law is somewhat different than Qatari law, so certain specifics mentioned in the story do not apply here. I should also warn my Khaleeji readers that there is a small amount of sexual content to the story, although it’s fairly benign. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Anyhow here it is… An Arrangement by Maura Madigan.
There is increasing concern in Qatari society about the rising age for marriages, and about the expenses incurred thereby. Under current law, a Qatari female is free to marry a foreigner, but her children will not be considered Qatari citizens (I have explained why elsewhere in this blog, see my post from April 2). This scenario realistically only makes sense if the sister emigrates to her husband’s home country.
Men on the other hand are not allowed to marry foreign women at all without special permission from the government. It is easy enough to obtain if the brother is older, or divorced, or has had some difficulty in finding a partner. On the other hand, if these issues do not apply, getting permission can be tricky. A friend of mine successfully received permission only after he established that his marriage offers had first been turned down by (many!) Qatari women, and then subsequently by women from neighboring Gulf countries. In light of this, and the fact that he was over thirty, permission was granted.
Khaleeji weddings are getting ever more elaborate, and therefore expensive. Many husbands have to actually go into debt to finance the celebration, something unthinkable a generation ago.
Another caveat, Emirati law is somewhat different than Qatari law, so certain specifics mentioned in the story do not apply here. I should also warn my Khaleeji readers that there is a small amount of sexual content to the story, although it’s fairly benign. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Anyhow here it is… An Arrangement by Maura Madigan.
There is increasing concern in Qatari society about the rising age for marriages, and about the expenses incurred thereby. Under current law, a Qatari female is free to marry a foreigner, but her children will not be considered Qatari citizens (I have explained why elsewhere in this blog, see my post from April 2). This scenario realistically only makes sense if the sister emigrates to her husband’s home country.
Men on the other hand are not allowed to marry foreign women at all without special permission from the government. It is easy enough to obtain if the brother is older, or divorced, or has had some difficulty in finding a partner. On the other hand, if these issues do not apply, getting permission can be tricky. A friend of mine successfully received permission only after he established that his marriage offers had first been turned down by (many!) Qatari women, and then subsequently by women from neighboring Gulf countries. In light of this, and the fact that he was over thirty, permission was granted.
Khaleeji weddings are getting ever more elaborate, and therefore expensive. Many husbands have to actually go into debt to finance the celebration, something unthinkable a generation ago.
posted by dervish at Thursday, May 19, 2005
4 Comments:
Assalaamu alaikum,
This is definitely a work of fiction, and I found a lot things didn't ring true, although I'm not Emirati... also, it's talking about very wealthy families, and not every Emirati is like that.
And I'm curious - do women in the Gulf normally put that kind of stuff in their marriage contracts? The women that I know don't normally put anything but the mahr.
She says that so many Emirati men were marrying foreigners that the population was decreasing. This doesn't even make sense, because even if every Emirati men married a foreign woman, his children would still be nationals - and people in this region normally
have a lot of children.
I wear niqab, and I can say that it's very unusual for a woman from Dubai; I get stared at all the time there. It would be very unusual for her to get married and then have to cover her face completely.
The separate bedrooms for a newly married couple, and limiting the husband to 3 days a month, are something I've never heard of. And a man who doesn't care that there are thousands of bugs on the wall of his apartment?
A lot of things about the maid don't seem right... and I've never heard of anyone spending a week in the hospital after giving birth. And she didn't go to her mother's house with her first baby?
"Please bring me some hummous and vine leaves"? Please... like the maid could whip that up in a minute... Can we say "stereotype"?
And while she's still sore from the childbirth, she and the baby go out for brunch?
I won't even touch the part wheret the woman was having an affair with her cousin before she got married, and the husband sleeping with the maid...
I wouldn't want anyone to think that this was at all accurate.
Yeah, I almost didn’t post it, but I couldn’t resist. I wanted to see what kind of reaction it got.
It’s more or less based on fact. I have heard most of these stories before… but many are isolated incidents. It would be virtually impossible to have all of those elements rolled up into one story.
Regarding the marriage contracts: In Qatar this would be a wealthy family, but not an extremely wealthy family. The top 5% or so in income/assets could expect something like this. Wedding costs are actually a growing problem here.
The mahr isn’t so bad, because at least the sister gets to keep that, a bigger problem is the cost of the wedding itself. Every family wants what is best for their little girl…completely understandable… but often “keeping up with the Jones’s” can make getting married very expensive.
And yes, a lot of the more intimate stuff about how their life went after the wedding was pretty contrived. I see “western writer” written all over that stuff. She gets many parts wrong, the bizarre limitations on the husband especially… Islam is conservative but not Puritan! Doesn’t she know that marital relations are a form of ibadah (worship) in Islam?
Most Qatari women wear niqab, but it wouldn’t need to be worn in the family section of a restaurant, and it shouldn’t limit peripheral vision (depends upon the design).
Asalaamu Alaykum,
Nice blog. I am a western convert to Islam married to a Saudi woman. In Saudi all citizens must, nominally, gain permission to marry a foreigner, although for a man this is very easy. For a woman, however, it is much harder. Saudis dont like their women marrying foreign men. I worked hard at it here in the USA, with the Saudi Embassy and didnt have much luck. Now, with some Wasta we have come up with, seems like it might happen.
Great site here!
That thing was a trip, derv.
As for being elaborate, 200 bucks will still get you married in many neighborhoods in Basra, and it would be considered a bit extravagant. In my own case, my maher was 3 bucks and a ring (lol I still have the same three bucks, too. Paid khums on it, too, lol)
Post a Comment
<< Home