British Expats - The Yes No vote

Quote:

Originally Posted by carcajou (Post 12468911)

Chalk and cheese.

In the Arab World, marriage is also heavily governed by legal codes.

Men are allowed to have four wives, but they all are required to be treated (financially) equally. If the husband gives a car to one wife, he has to give a car to all four wives; and if he gives a Porsche to one, he has to give a Porsche to all four. He can't give a Porsche to one and a Toyota to another (and, yes, perfectly acceptable and expected for women to drive across the Middle East - it's only a problem in Saudi Arabia). Can't also have one sleeping in a nice bedroom while the other sleeps in a shed. So polygamy also requires a big house. Etc etc etc.

That's why, though it's come to represent a stereotype of the Arab World, very, very few Arabs actually have multiple wives - it's expensive to do so. Your average middle class government servant in Cairo can't afford to have more than one wife.

Arab weddings are almost always arranged, and to cousins - they don't marry for love. Though in some parts of the Gulf like the UAE it's becoming more common for a bride and groom to have a "coffee date" before the wedding day where they can at least meet and see each other first and increasingly a bride can veto a wedding to a man they can't stomach. But Western-style dating and love marriages are completely out of the question.

So, Arab women also view it differently - some don't mind it because, as they didn't marry for love, they don't mind if there is an extra distraction around for the man so they can spend less time with him and don't have to have "relations" with him as often. Or, at least has been explained to me by countless Arab women during my years in the Middle East.

A pretty accurate description of how it pans out in Islamic societies from my observations and information. Although one thing does spring to mind.
That being age. The first time I crossed this in real life, the man and his two wives appeared to have the perfect relationship. The women, both in their fifties were to my eyes, more like friends or sisters. All worked together in their beachside rather basic, restaurant business, that was more a meeting place for local fishermen, so very close knit.

The problems I personally witnessed was when a guy, whom I knew for some time, married a second wife, much, much younger than first, and although wife one agreed to union, she confided she was not happy with her role undermined, by wife two, to whom of course the husband spent more 'passion' with, even though the rules states equality in treatment it just didn't happen.