JEDDAH, 20 March 2005 — For many marriages, husbands’ hopes to preserve traditional Saudi values and wives’ aspirations to pursue meaningful careers have set a collision course on the freeway of love. Many wives being given a choice by their husbands of “my way or the highway” are choosing to hit the road and getting divorced to follow their dreams. It’s a cultural crossroads with no road map for guidance and a serious problem for Saudi society in an increasingly interactive and open world.

For centuries, life in the Arabian Peninsula remained much the same, creating strong cultural traditions that have been a source of strength and pride, but humankind’s thousands of scientific, industrial, medical and technological advancements now shape life here and cannot help but have dramatic effects on our culture.

“In my culture, women should stay at home and take care of house and kids,” said Abdul Aziz Muhammad, a 28-year-old government employee with a high school education. “This is how I was raised with my mother taking care of us and my father working. I don’t like her to be working in any place but home. As long as I support her financially, I would like to see her at home.”

It’s a traditional, long-accepted viewpoint, but for many women with college or university degrees, they feel an obligation to use that learning constructively for their own personal fulfillment and the benefit of society.

“Shall I stop studying because he wants me to? A wife is not a slave,” said Manal Ali, a 24-year-old divorcee. She said the main reason behind her divorce was her ex-husband’s jealousy and his strange views of dealing with women.

“My ex-husband thought that he bought me to be part of his furniture,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with women continuing their education and working. If a husband is jealous of his wife’s success, then the husband needs to fix his own problems and never blame his problems on his wife’s successes.”

At universities around the globe, graduating students are urged to go out into the world and help make it a better place. It is a charge that guides the lives of those who have worked hard to gain knowledge and understanding.

“When I worked as teacher in a girls’ school, he got very angry and rejected my request,” said Ghada Sulaiman, a 31-year-old woman who is both trilingual and highly educated. She had hoped to benefit society with her intellectual gifts, but her husband didn’t want her to get involved in the work force, claiming that anywhere she would work would involve contact with men.

“After that, I figured out that he just wanted to limit my role in society to that of a housewife,” she said. “Nothing makes me angrier than seeing those useless certificates framed on the wall.”

It’s not simply a problem of the younger generation, and even long-standing marriages are not immune to the effects of our changing world.

Heba Muhammad, a 43-year-old divorced woman, said when she married more than 25 years ago, she was well-educated and well-known in business circles.

“I encouraged him to work hard and continue his study until he got his doctorate degree,” Heba said. “When we became equals in education, he began to get jealous, and he ended up giving me an ultimatum to leave my job, stay home to take care of the kids or get divorced. I don’t know if that’s what I deserved after all that I did for him.”

She chose divorce over staying at home.

Wafaa Al-Saadi at the Ministry of Social Affairs conceded that globalization has changed some of the Kingdom’s social structure. The Internet and other kinds of communications have brought the world closer together.

“Some men are against the idea of a woman getting famous or loved by people more than the husband,” she said. “Some husbands are against the feeling of being challenged by their wives.”

A wife’s work should never be an obstacle to her household role, she added.

“If the husband insists that his wife either leaves the job or gets a divorce, then she has two choices,” Wafaa said. “Either to talk to him and shape his opinion in an indirect manner by giving an example or a hypothetical story as if it’s not her story or to bear with the situation and accept it.”

But perhaps there’s another level of acceptance that needs to be seriously considered as the Kingdom has to compete with other nations to ensure the best lives for all of its people.

“A woman is the mother of the generation and she is the one who has the most influence on the children,” said Badr Majed, a 27-year-old man. “If she wasn’t educated, she wouldn’t be able to deal with educated kids. I think in 2005, it’s a shame for any man to prevent his wife from working or gaining any kind of education as long as it’s within the Islamic limits and respecting our traditions.”

A road map for a cultural crossroads?