Manal tells her story with some laughable wretchedness and sadness. She says in her message, “I am 30 years old, Saudi, a graduate and like many university graduates still looking for a job. Looking for employment is not, however, my main concern or top priority because it is almost impossible to get a job without wasta (connection). My main concern at the moment is getting married. I’m 30 and unmarried, what should I do?
“One of my friends advised me to contact a sheikh who also works as a matchmaker. After some initial hesitation, I called him and responded to his questions. I told him that my prospective husband should be single. It’s not important if he is divorced or a widower, he shouldn’t be married. He confirmed that my request was difficult if not impossible because I am 30 and no bachelor would want to marry a woman like me.
“I later discovered that there are women who are older than me and less beautiful, and who got married through this sheikh whereas I’m still waiting. Wasta played an important role in it. This sheikh arranged marriages for other women in standard time because they came through people he knew. These women were also married to single men. Is this our situation now that it depends on wasta how quick matchmakers operate? Is this our condition even though matchmakers claim to be working for the sake of Allah?”
Manal’s message ended. Even if she did not explain why she hesitated for weeks before contacting the matchmaker, we can say she was struggling between giving up her humanity against becoming a commodity such as a car to be sold to a buyer without any guarantee.
This situation drives men and women into illicit relations, which is more dangerous. The majority of women who give their names to matchmakers are seen as commodities. It also seems that most men are convinced that marriage is like buying a new car. They take care of their wives for a short time just like someone who buys a new car and then, as time passes, they lose interest.
Establishing a family in these circumstances is difficult. Therefore, it seems natural that a driver is brought in to behave like the father and a housemaid is brought to behave like the mother. The issue is not just of parents being lazy.
Organizing marriages through matchmakers under the pretext of protecting society is destructive to humanity; this destruction is not limited to the husband and wife, but also affects children from such matrimonies. The child who lives in a house devoid of love and emotions cannot be normal. If we were to tell him or her this then he or she would say, “I never saw normal people from whom I could have learned to be a normal, loving human being.”
