Hypocracy!

There are some things that you come across in Saudi Arabia that strike the average westerner as being more than a bit hypocritical.

Here is an excerpt from an article in yesterday's Arab News:-

Misyar Brokers

I really do not know how an owner of a real estate office in Makkah manages to work as an estate agent and simultaneously arrange misyar marriages. Apparently, this man magically transformed his agency into a misyar marriage-fixing center.

In fact he has even prepared an application form that takes details of the groom and the bride. Prospective misyar partners can pay SR100 and fill the form. When two individuals are found to be compatible and who decide to see each other then the groom is asked to pay a SR500 fee. In case both the bride and the groom agree to marry each other, then the amount of money paid to the agent goes up to SR5,000.

. . . . . . . . .
It would have been more appropriate and convenient if our community worked on establishing charitable institutions to perform such tasks free of charge and faraway from greedy real estate agents.

Having an institution organizing and arranging marriages is much more reliable and suitable for young women and it saves the suitors the amount of money wasted in getting the services of real estate agents.

I think people should work toward freeing the concept of marriage from the shackles of unscrupulous real estate agents. There is a huge difference between land and humans and the contracts of marriage and real estate.

The article is not talking about marriage brokers but misyar marriage brokers. Misyar marriage can be described as a marriage for SEX. I found that the Wikipedia article describes misyar marriage much better than I can:-

Nikah Misyar or "travellers' marriage" can be described as a legal framework of marriage in which a Muslim couple is united by the bonds of marriage, based on the usual Islamic marriage contract, but without the husband having to take the usual financial commitments with respect to his wife.
. . . . . . .
The wife continues to carry out a separate life from that of her husband, living in her home and providing for her needs by her own means. But her husband has the right to go to her home (or to the residence of her parents, where she is often supposed to reside), at any hour of the day or the night, whenever he wants to. The couple can then appease in a licit way their "legitimate sexual needs" (to which the wife cannot refuse herself).
. . . . . . .

The practice of Misyar marriage is often different from the original intent for creating this institution. Wealthy Kuwaiti and Saudi men sometimes enter into a Misyar marriage while on vacation. This allows them to have sexual relations with another woman without committing the sin of zina [fornication].

They travel to poor countries, such as Egypt or Syria, and meet middlemen who arrange a marriage for them. Some men arrange Misyar marriages online. The middleman brings some girls and they pick the one that they like most. These men pay the girl's family some money.

. . . . .

A reporter in Jehhh has reported that some marriage officials say seven of 10 marriage contracts they conduct are misyar, and in some cases are asked to recommend prospective misyar partners. Most of the women opting for misyar either are divorced, widowed or beyond the customary marriage age. The majority of men who take part in such marital arrangements are already married.

. . . . . .

Based on the experience of the "misyar marriage agencies", the man who resorts to the "misyar" marriage is usually married to a first wife with whom he shares a residence, and to the financial needs of whom he provides.

. . . . . . .

Since he usually refrains from telling his first wife of his second marriage, the relationship within the couple is distorted, resulting at times in major complications which can even end in divorce, when the first wife finds out about the situation.

As to the second wife, her status is devalued, because she does not have any right on her husband, be it over the time he gives her, his presence at her home, or his financial contribution to help her cover her own needs. Moreover, this type of marriage ends up sooner or later in divorce, (in 80% of the cases, according to some), when the wife is no longer to the liking of the husband.

It sounds remarkably like legalized adultery to me, yet many in the ME think we are immoral and decadent!

There are other examples of behaviour that strikes us as being hypocritical. During the holiay season you will find the Saudi-Bahrain causeway choked with cars full of Saudi men.

They come from Riyadh and other parts of Saudi and leave their wives and children in one of the holiday resorts that are mushrooming in Khobar. The men then go over the causeway to Bahrain to drink and visit the Russian prostitutes there!

To be fair, there are many scholars who criticize misyar marriages, and the Saudis who visit Bahrain to drink and whore are not the same as the ones who say that western civilization is immoral. However, many ex-pats like myself still feel that there's an awful lot of hypocracy flying around.

abuTrevor