When a man loves a woman

Speaking about marriage in one of my posts, I said that love is complicated .
Although I never got married, I understood by now, that love is the last factor in a marriage .
Marriage is more about understanding, compromising, sacrificing, sharing goals .
So it is complicated anywhere in the world but in different forms, depending on the mentality and traditions of the place .
For example my Emaraty lady friend I mentioned in my previous post, she had an incredible life seen from outside .
She got married to this police officer, I believe he was in some high rank, they had beautiful, healthy and educated children, lived in a marvellous house, came to Europe for holidays, bought expensive stuff .
Yet there was something not working .

During an internet conversation, my friend confessed she had had a couple of arguments with her husband, which led her to think about drastic solutions .
First, he did not want their daughter to go to a mixed university .
He was bedouin, which means not very much open minded and very tough .
But in a way she had won that battle .
It was she and the daughter against the husband, his brother and her own sister who had married him, but she  did it .
She explained the girl needs and that the world is moving on from some standards, so time had come also for them in order to do so .
When again there was a dispute about the fact that being her children all grown, she wanted to try to have her own way in business, her husband was even tougher .
She told me : "see, he has given me everything he could . Treated me and the children in an excellent manner, and also I gave everything to the family .
Now, I feel the time has come to give everything to myself . "
So she came to the conclusion that if he hadn't allowed her, then they would better go for devorce .
And that I think, shocked her husband, who, after so many years of marriage and knowing how much love there was between themselves, regardless of their union being arranged , understood that his wife needed more .
Bedouins are tough and simple minded, but in their simplicity there is a great heart .
So he understood and allowed her to start her business, just proposing himself as curator of the commercial part, and she accepted .
She went for a gym with a coffee shop and felt herself relieved .

Marriage, as earlier explained, is a family thing, so when there is some particular issue, they all are somehow part of it, in good and bad .
When the matter is on marrying a foreigner, that can be painful .
If the family is very conservative, the man can also go through it, but he must have a very strong personality and stand by his wife for every little thing, without entering in conflict with his relatives .
I recall a friend, whose mother was American and Catholic, who used to say : "every time we go to our grandmother house for Friday's visit, we are always the last left for greetings, as if we are some second class grandchildren" .
And this was not due to the fact that her mother was Catholic, rather for being a foreigner .
Marrying an outsider for some, is a sort of betrayal .
This is not the mentality of all .
I remember reading that Carol, the author of one of the most famous blogs of the Gulf, American bedu, has great memories of her family and especially of her mother in law .

This is the same attitude which brings some Arabs to be racist against black people or against fellow Arabs with mixed blood .
I remember being at a restaurant once, and witnessing a fight between two of same nationality, with one accusing the other to be black and not of pure descent .
They were drunk of course but as they say, in vino veritas .
There is this thinking that an Arab is worth to be called so, only if both mother and father are .

In general, I would say that some Arabs lack flexibility due to their being closed in their own world and fearing that opening up, necessarily means to lose something of their identity .
In the same way, here in Europe we fear to be stripped of our sovereignity as long as more foreigners come to our land .
With time, education and exchanges, I am positive this attitude will slightly modify .

Love in the middle of the East

Love is already a complicated affair, at least it is for me .
In the Arab world it can be also more .
And not for religious reasons as one may think, when reading certain media .

Things get ugly mainly when tribal issues and family members get mixed in the relation .
Usually, engagements and marriages happen within the same circle of families, that is a tribe .
There are exceptions though, depending on how open the mentality of the tribe one belongs to, is .
Islam in difficult cases, when the father doesn't want to grant permission for marriage, comes to help .
If a girl wants to marry a boy which is not liked by the family, she goes to court to present the case, and if everything is fine by the laws, they can get married with the sheikh acting as her wali (protector) .
It is not easy though, because the girl will be isolated from the rest of the family .
In some cases she runs away .
In worst scenario relatives will try to stage honour killing as well .
This is something people think happening only in Yemen or Pakistan, but they take place also in remote areas of other countries of the Persian gulf .
So, often girls follow their fathers desires, because they know their dreams are almost impossible to achieve and they don't want to lose the family of origin of course .
The average Western reader will think that the father permission is useless .
As every Islamic tenet, its logic is that of protecting the girl .
When it is abused, it becomes a burden .

Speaking about polygamy, another issue frowned upon in the West, it needs to be clarified that in Islam it takes place only when required and under conditions which are per se difficult to fullfill .
And still this practice is abused .
Many men get married again, to show off their wealth or to have a younger spouse .
They do not even respect the rule to be fair to all their wives and children, so often kids grow up very uncomfortably, with a sense of rage against their fathers and siblings .

When it comes to marrying from outside, this is still very difficult for women, while the men's task is relatively easier .
The logic behind these legal obstacles, is to keep alive local tradtions and heritage, and also to avoid a boys drain .
If all were free to marry from out, most ladies would stay unmarried .
There is many discussions about westerners getting married to Arabs .
In my opinion one has to be oriented toward diversity and be ready to compromise and sacrifice .
That is the key to avoid bad stories which we often read about devorces and children of mixed couples .
And of course the lady must pick an honest Arab guy who will not play tricks but rather inform her of all the laws of the country .

Another reason why girls nowdays do not marry very easily, other than the fact that now they prefer to work or study, is mahr, that is the amount of money asked by the father, to be given to the girl by the future husband .
In Islam it has the meaning of entering a new life provided by the man .
It is merely symbolic .
Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings upon him, married girls who were gifted just a ring or a cloak, by their spouses .
But today's fathers are very greedy .
Depending on the country and the mentality, the request can be up to 30000 euros and more .
And of course it is difficult to find such rich men .
So girls just stay unmarried .
And if their family's thinking is very traditional, also their younger sisters do not get married, because the idea is that they can go married only after the eldest .

I know all this can sound quite backward and cruel, but also here in the West despite modernity, relations between men and women are not that good .

I fell in love with a man of the Gulf when I still was not much familiar with these issues .
And yet I was lucky, because he didn't play games with me .
Sometimes gulfians are not honest with foreign ladies .
We met on internet of course, as it often happens .
Then we met in real life, during one of my trips and we started a relation which became complicated when I moved there .
Real life is much more difficult than the virtual one .
Oddly enough, I was the conservative between the two, while he was very naive or bohemienne, let's call it so .
A writer very much Western oriented, in love with life and dreams, could not match the expectations of a woman who was fancying the Arab blue prince .
I was not patient enough to wait as one of his friends suggested, and so we lost each other .
I found him back a couple of years ago, married to a young smart lady .
They had a cute baby (he has already three from a previous marriage) and we all became friends .
They are actually also helping me to sort out some troubles .
She is younger than me but very wise . She accepted the way he is, while I wanted to change him .
I admire her a lot .
I understood also how love can finish .
When I was with him, I was thinking great loves do never end .
But when i met him again, I just felt a great affection and friendship for him .
I don't know if it is because it was not the love with the big L or just love, as every human happening, can finish all of a sudden .
In any case, it just was not meant to be .
Despite the age, I am in my forties, i am still waiting for the blue prince, but to be honest, I am not very positive about it .
I feel like I don't deserve it .