A total of 65 percent of Saudi women meet their spouses on social networking sites, while only 35 percent resort to the traditional way of proposing with the consent of family members, a survey conducted by a local newspaper has found. However, marriage brokers and consultants warn that girls and women face manipulation by insincere men, which could lead to quick divorces after marriage. “It is usually not recommended, especially for girls, to find their spouses through social networking sites,” says Marwan Hadi, a marriage consultant. “They might not see the harm in it now, but results have shown that the majority of such cases have failed.” Many young Saudis have recently turned to matchmaking websites to find partners. According to a report earlier this year, there are more than 200 Twitter pages and dozens of other forums on the Internet offering services for Saudi men and women seeking spouses. This has angered traditional matchmakers. “Finding a spouse online will totally ruin one’s marital life, at least for girls,” says Amra Shari, a marriage broker. “I have seen many such cases where the relationship between the man and his wife was not as happy as it could have been with the blessings of the parents.” Shari says that it is prohibited in Islam for a woman to have contact with a man until he becomes her mahram. “Most children nowadays want independence from their parents,” says Dr. Khalid Bahaziq, a family consultant and psychologist. “They are not interested in following traditions and agreeing to live with total strangers.” He says many young women say they want to fall in love and know more about their prospective partners before marriage. Bahaziq recommends women looking for spouses online but says they should investigate the men they choose afterwards. “Online matchmaking sites are only the beginning; there is a lot to do after that.” He adds that women choose spouses online because meeting publicly could see them fall foul of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. “We cannot trust a man with a woman alone because even in Islam it says the third person is always the devil. My only advice is that they find them online but do a background check on their family values, manners and behavior.”
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 05:09:57 +0000
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