It’s usual to say that women have positive characteristics that are conducive to their success in life. The purpose of this column is not to outline the areas where women excel or to enumerate success stories. The point here is to focus on the Saudi man’s perspective of women and how he evaluates the female character.
To begin with, we must start by accepting the reality of our society. Cultural practices are ingrained in our individual and collective consciences. One example is the practice of a man proposing to a woman, not by asking her but by asking her family. This practice shows the general attitude Saudi men have toward Saudi women.
It is well known that, because of social and religious practices, looking for a bride in Saudi Arabia is different from looking for one in many other countries. Saudi culture prohibits the mixing of unrelated men and women in general, much less for the purposes of seeking a marriage partner. Work circumstances and other inter-personal relationships do provide a small chance for marriage, but the likelihood is small. Most couples get married through matchmakers — who might be a husband, a sister, another relative or a matchmaking office, the latter having become more popular recently.
When a man decides to get married in a traditional way, he basically agrees to let his personal desires come second to those of the matchmaker.
For example, the man will place a high premium on the woman’s appearance while the matchmaker emphasizes issues of character and intellect. On her side, the would-be bride’s behavior will have an influence on her acceptability. She may act one way around her mother and sisters and a different way in front of others. In other words, the mother’s description of her daughter might be different from what the would-be groom sees in the potential bride.
Descriptions of the woman by her relatives might not be enough for the man. And the more questions the man asks, the more doubts may be raised in his mind. But eventually the man might delve into aspects of his potential wife’s mental and psychological state.
After the search stage, the man chooses from a list of potential spouses. He begins by approaching the family of the woman at the top of his list.
Tradition dictates that the family have a few days to inquire about the groom’s reputation. This time might be long or short, depending on how well known the bride’s family is to the groom and his family. If the man’s request for the woman is denied, then he moves to the second nominee on the list. And the process goes on until he receives an approval.
After the approval, there are two ways to proceed with the marriage. First, they go ahead with the wedding preparations without having the couples meet until the wedding night. The other way is to have them meet and then decide whether they want to go on with the marriage or not.
Many families in the Kingdom refuse to show their daughters to suitors. They believe that exposing a girl’s body to a man so he can examine her is humiliating. In big cities such as Riyadh, they have gotten rid of the silly tradition of not allowing the couples to meet, allowing them to become acquainted and granting them both the freedom to pull out of the arrangement (albeit with the potential of suffering under the burden of family pressures if the decision is made too late in the process).
I would like to emphasize here that Islam allows the groom to see his bride after he decides that he wants to marry and she has accepted him. The reason for this physical meeting is to create an emotional bond with abstract boundaries so that the couple can become familiar with each other.
