The way I see traditionalmarriages in Syria and in the rest of the Arab countries –which is based on my observations- isclosest to what I like to call legal prostitution. Arranged match making in thewest, based on what I heard and read, is usually based on the social andfinancial state of the bride and broom’s families; however inSyria there is another importantfactor which is the beauty of the bride.

Of course the beauty of thisbride should be evaluated high on both the broom and his family scale. In orderto demonstrate what I mean let’s take for example this scenario: a guy X sawgirl Y and finds himself attracted to her, so he decides to seal the deal and marryher, however X’s family Z -which is consists of his mother, grandmothers,aunts, uncles’ wives, and his great grandmothers in case they’re still alived-didn’t approve of Y’s looks. So after hearing a series of very lame reasons andarguments like “lek bokrah betzawaj wahdeh 3aleha ow be6ale2ha” tomorrowyou’ll either marry another one or dump her, or “walaadak be6la3ou besh3ein”you’ll have ugly kids, or “shou beddon ye7kou el-nass 3aleina, mou mlaa2ee7ada yerdda feek?” what’s the people going to think of you? That you didn’tfind any girl to accept you, or my personal favorite “lek ssemt ou ssmetou ba3deen fa6aret 3ala bassaleh!!” you fast and fast, then to break it withan onion!! X will eventually forget about Y even though she could be the one, andstart another hunting journey, where most probably his pray will suffer thesame trial all over again. Now even without considering the heartache thepotential couple may suffer, the fact that the bride should meet all the Z setmembers’ standards, is very humiliating, hard and even impossible if Z doesn’thave a strong dictator who could be convinced and in her turn convince therest.

Now even though it seems that theonly victim here is Y, X suffers greatly as well. Moreover when an educated X, who wants to marry an independent and working Y, gets involved in this mockery,he faces an additional huge burden which is finding this rare Y. Me and theguys were talking about this rarity in the Arab societies the other day, andafter a very long and tiring discussion we agreed that only 10% percent ofSyrian and Arab Y’s are like that, and we also came to the conclusion that themain reason behind this rarity is that Y’s usually set their ambitions verylow, the majority of them just want to get married, live in a nice large house,have children, and don’t die before seeing their grandkids which is of course after their daughter inherited the same internal “philosophy”. Of course thatdoesn’t mean that Arab Y’s have a low IQ or anything of that sort, actually we–me and my friends- think that they have a high IQ but which they use to puttheir hand on the future husband and then use it in keeping him. That’s whyit’s believed in here that the most successful women are who succeed infinding the wealthiest men.

Of course that doesn’t mean the menwho married women from the west –where most of them are independent andworking- found happiness or what they were looking for. Actually based on theinterracial marriages I witnessed which is a lot, very few were successful, andeven fewer lasted.

So at the end most of us afterendless time spent in confusion, and on deciding whether to let down his familyand goes after what he really desires or to do as they desire and may face apainful future, end up steering at the ceiling and praying to god that he’ll belucky and every thing will turn out just fine. And that’s what I think is thebiggest, most catastrophic error youth commit,they always think too much, and yearn to their parents approval, which willnever break this painful tradition, and in the other hand parents don’t give theiroffspring any break and won’t ever back off. So the result is usually a couplewho will most probably keep living together till they die because of coursedivorce is not an option –and another grave problem- just go through themotions, and live a life filled with disappointment.

Update: I’d would like to make it clear that I am not in anywaygeneralizing, there is successful arranged marriages and I've seen my share ofthem