Egyptian male view on Marriage.

It was about time an egyptian man had the guts and willingness to openly speak about the subject. As a Woman, a dancer and a foreigner living in a place I love but never fully understood or adapted to, my own perspective on culture, traditions, mentality is molded by my background and, therefore, always partial and limited.

Knowing that, I appreciate an egyptian male´s perspective on the very interesting and complicated subject of MARRIAGE. Here it goes...

Thanks to Wail Abdel (the official supporter of Oriental Dancers!:) for this text that I roughly corrected, keeping its original version.

"Well ,, I am used to read, not to write. No promises to find acceptable writer, I guess the talent of gift to transfer thought into word and sentence is not an easy thing , but as a friend asked , I will try.

I am normal Egyptian guy , Muslim , mid level family ,, not good talker but I am sure of myself to be good listener (I tried this before J ). 

 I will talk about marriage in Egyptian society , from Male perspective, whatever try to be liberated , but Islamic back ground after all.

First , before I talk about Marriage in Egypt , we must identify Marriage from Egyptian perspective, simply it’s not just guy and girl to be connect via marriage , it’s two Families union (Muslim and Christian share the same perspective) ,, and as this is very nice concept , it also creates lot of problems that I will mention.

Guys marry  for creating a  family , for SEX (legal sex ), for love , for family sake , for money ,, well lot of reasons , and due to the guy´s personality you can arrange those items. First , we all know that sex before marriage is socially forbidden, due to Islam and among Christians too, so the concept of trying it first  is not common J , but it’s spreading among  youth slowly these days (at first between lovers , then sex for sex comes in second place) and for my time (when I was in twenties and being naughty I can say it was about 10% - 15% in Cairo, and this percentage became higher in tourist cities like hurgada, sharm , dahab, where guys find foreigners who like to try Egyptians for fun , or liberated Egyptian girls (honestly I didn’t go there for pleasure ever , but just telling from friends who did).

Back to the main subject : Marriage.

 Fact Number one: it’s not normal that when a couple falls in love with each other they will automatically  get married.  NO , it’s not a fairy tale L , even if they fell in love and announce their will to be connected ,,, here come the FAMILIES and the traditions.

If I said that the failed love stories happen because the different family levels, or they don’t like each other (the parents) is 25% ,, the rest of the failed stories will be because of MONEY issues.

Here in Egypt MOST of girl´s families (and many girls too) want to get Gold, car and good apartment and  furniture,, lots of times I heard a sentence ( I want my daughter to live in the same level she lives now).  For God´s sake , how could that happen!  I am a guy who is working now for several years, how can I make her live in same economic level that her daddy assures her after working 25 to 30 years !!!!!!

One girl said , I love you Wail, but you have to change your car , it’s too old !!! (I had a Fait 132 , 1978 model, younger than me by couple years J )

Another mom said – they were relatives – my girl already refused someone who was ready to give her a Gold present of about 100,000 EP … !!!!!!!!!!!

Good people are around , they still exist. The ones who believe that if the guy has good manners (and specially if he  happened to have hard times and maybe turned to fight , he won’t hurt her) , he will be suitable to their daughter, and they can struggle in life together, but the majority will avaliate you by how much you will pay.

I am not saying that guys are angels ,,, NOOO,, we are devils too ,,, some guys see that he can go and engage a beautiful girl , go out with her , maybe have some kisses and even sex , then make any troubles and leave her ,,, or even the guy’s family is full of  devils ,, some guys don’t get married (or even their marriage fails) because they don’t like to have any responsibilities , he – even after getting married- want to still hang out with his pals each day,  the marriage for him is to have regular sex, this type in most cases fail to continue. And if this marriage lives longer , that’s because the woman’s family forces her not to get divorced !! , although it’s easy in Islam to get divorced (not like orthodox Christianity ) but many consider this shame , so the victim here is the wife,, especially if she has a weak personality.

It is the crazy Egypt , maybe a question will popp up , how (and why) did I get married … well ,, I passed through many failed love stories, I can’t lie and said my heart was broken all the time.

 I broke some hearts too , but I was convinced that I have to end this relation even if the love is around  ,, my wife was a relative to family,, I was admiring her , no Huge love story , she had fallen in love with me (honestly I don’t know why , she was seeing me silly before I proposed, , maybe none of you saw me alive before, I am not lady killer , or Casanova guy ) and I loved her truly with time (remember I said I was already admiring her character, even with not much talking between us, because I was – and still are – a  very straight guy and not naughty at all infront of my family  ;) )

This was a 35 years old guy point of view about marriage in Egypt, hope I make a point.

Wail  "