Posted on 09/14/2002 3:00:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- For Aisha Abdullah, one of 25 Saudi women getting married in a mass wedding, this was the day she would shed what in Saudi Arabia is still considered a serious stigma -- being 40 and single.
"No one can call me a spinster anymore," said the bride in her sequined cream dress. "Every time someone used to ask me why I was still unmarried, I would feel shame and embarrassment."
The mass wedding in Jiddah on Aug. 6 was organized by the Charitable Project to Assist Youths to Get Married, one of many religious groups promoting marriage by offering financial aid for wedding parties, dowries and a couple's first furniture.
As Saudi Arabia gingerly tries to tackle some of the problems that have built up during decades as a strictly Muslim state, it is turning a lot of attention to what the press calls the "spinsterhood phenomenon."
Since the notion of a single career woman barely exists in a country where women aren't even allowed to drive, marriage is still seen as the only route to true fulfillment. A woman can go to college and even work for a few years, but her life isn't considered validated until she is married and raising children.
According to a 2001 Planning Ministry study reported by the Saudi press, about 1.5 million Saudi women are over 30 and single in a population of 17 million Saudis and about 6 million expatriates. It gave no figures for the unmarried male population.
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.
As reduced oil revenues lower living standards across the Arab world, couples are finding it harder to marry young.
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 stars they have been seeing on satellite TV in the decade it has been legal here.
However, women say the real problem is that Saudi Arabia has gotten poorer, with an unemployment rate estimated at 20 percent and a population consisting mostly of people under 18.
"Women are being blamed to divert attention from the real problem, which is unemployment," said Hatoon al-Fassi, a historian and columnist.
Al-Fassi, like many Saudi women, objects to how single women are perceived, saying the word aanis, or spinster, "is a derogative, pejorative term."
The same word is used for unmarried men, yet "There isn't the same pressure on men to get married, no stigma," she said.
Pressure to marry comes not just from the family but from the powerful religious establishment, which fears that unmarried women might violate the Muslim ban on premarital sex.
The clergy actively encourages Saudis to marry, and some groups even remind women that Islam allows a man to have four wives at a time.
Religious leaflets left in hospital waiting rooms, at wakes and on campuses tell women to "be content with a quarter of a man instead of plummeting into the jungles of decadence."
The same message is repeated in the press and Friday prayers. On July 27, Ali bin Suleiman al-Dubeikhi wrote in the Al-Eqtisadiah daily that on men "all hopes are pinned to wipe out spinsterhood ... by taking several wives."
The writer said since Islam approves of polygamy, a woman should even help her husband find other wives.
Shorouq al-Fawwaz scoffed at the idea, writing in Al Riyadh newspaper that men take other wives not out of "noble intentions" but because they want younger women.
"Their oft-repeated excuse is that they want to help wipe out spinsterhood," she wrote. "If that were really their intention we wouldn't find women over 35 waiting in their parents' homes or second wives -- and how numerous they are -- who are below 25."
Another solution being debated is the misyar marriage -- a system permitted by some schools of Islamic thought in which the husband does not have to reveal the marriage to his family or other wives. A misyar wife usually lives in another city, and her husband visits her when he pleases.
Some female commentators are against it.
Fowziyah Abu-Khalid, a sociologist and writer, dismissed it as "a way for a man to acquire a legal mistress."
Norah A. al-Sowayan, a social counselor, said life is tough for the single Saudi woman.
"From the time she is born, she is taught that her only fulfillment as a woman comes through being a wife and a mother," she said. "Even if she has reached an advanced stage in her education, she will always be made to feel inferior because she's not married."
Fewer than 7 percent of Saudi women work. A woman needs permission from a male guardian to go to school, get a job or travel.
Her life is subject to the interpretations of the sharia, or Islamic law by religious scholars -- always male.
Abu-Khalid, the sociologist, said a lot of attention is given to the subject of marriage instead of to women's more serious demands, such as a say in decision-making and equal job and educational opportunities.
She said one problem is that matchmaking hasn't kept up with the times. Couples can now meet more easily over the phone or Internet, but a Saudi man still relies on his mother to choose his bride, and she is unlikely to accept a match made over a cell phone.
"Even though a woman these days is more educated than her mother and grandmother, the marriage arrangement is still the same," said Abu-Khalid.
Meanwhile, as Saudi families have migrated to cities and large clans have fragmented, it has become harder to keep matchmaking within the tribe, "So even the traditional way of arranging marriage has become difficult," Abu-Khalid said.
Back at the mass wedding in a hall on a large exhibition ground, where 40-year-old Aisha Abdullah married a 32-year-old security official, the men and women celebrated separately.
Five thousand female guests waited to congratulate the brides, the rhythmic beat of a tambourine rising above their chatter.
Gazing at the guests from a waiting room, Ilham Arab said she would have been unable to marry without the charity's help.
She was only 22 and still at college, but said: "I would have been upset if I had not been able to get married."
It's getting harder for them to marry first cousins. That's not such a bad thing. Saudi Arabia has very high rates of rare inherited diseases. These are due to thousands of years of marrying close relatvies.
Ah, reminds me of my daughter's wedding. The high pitched shreiking over the banging of tambourines...
It is a scientific fact that if a species (culture) does not produce new individuals that it will die out. Where did I write in favor of illegitamcy ? or even against polygamy ?
As for the Saudi women's complaint that the men desired younger 2nd wives, this does makes sense if more children are desired. While the 40 year old lady may be a charming helpmate, the ruthless facts of nature mean she is much less likely to have babies than a 20 year old. I suppose that if the Saudi man married the older woman second (or third) she would then complain it was only to secure a fulltime babysitter and helper for the younger mother(s) !
It would probably be safer and easier to dance drunken in a minefield than try to placate four spouses !!!!
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