Marriages Unlimited
Mody Al-Khalaf mody.alkhalaf@gmail.com

Dear Customer,

Please fill out the following form so that we can best serve you. Remember, we are here to meet all your needs. Our motto is: “All fun, no responsibility.”

I am seeking a wife between the ages of:

(15-20) (21-25) (26-30) (30-35) (36+)

Height _______________ Weight ___________

Complexion ______________________________

Tribal affiliation (in order of preference)

________________________________________

Status: Virgin, Divorced (w or w/o children?) ________________

Widowed (w or w/o children?) ________________

Next, please mark the following choices so that we may decide which

marriage best suits your personal needs.

I would like a wife who agrees to relinquish the following rights:

Right to children

___Right to public announcement of the marriage

___All of the above

I would like a wife to meet the following needs:

___Owns a home or lives with her family

___Has her own job

___Enjoys traveling

___Speaks English

___Attractive

___Open minded (to do the things my current wife will not do)

___All of the above

___Right to housing

___Right to financial support

___Right to time (spending the night especially)

___

Thank you for your time. The total service fee will be determined by your above choices (SR5,000-15,000). You are required to pay SR500 to initiate search.

Sound too absurd to be real? It’s not. Matchmaking is a booming business here these days. In addition, marriage in many Arab countries has taken on some new forms and shapes. Among the different types especially popular in Saudi Arabia is the “misyar” (i.e. visiting marriage). This means the man is not required to provide a home, financial support or to spend the night. He can just “visit” whenever he pleases. Another form of marriage is the “misyaf” (i.e. summer marriage). This means the couple is together only in the summer, usually when traveling and is meant to avoid the temptations of forbidden sex — or in the case of the woman, have a “mahram” around for social purposes. A third, even more outrageous marriage is the “mityar” (i.e. flying marriage). In this one, a man marries a second wife solely to accompany him on his frequent business trips. In this case, the man usually wants a very attractive, open-minded woman who speaks good English.

The concept of marriage is coming in for re-examination in Saudi Arabia these days. I think it’s a side-effect of efforts to recognize other-than-Wahhabi Islamic traditions. Masyar marriage, for instance, has been part of the Shi’a tradition misyaf and mityar marriages were new to me. [UPDATE: I'm corrected by Mahmood: It's Mut'a marriage that is Shi'a in origin. It was one of the stones that the Sunni used to throw at the Shi'a as representing little more than prostitution, though of course the Shi'a disagreed. As one Bahraini Shi'a imam explained it to me, though, it's origin is in helping a man with a barren wife to have a child. ]

[I asked Ms. Al-Khalaf in an e-mail a week or so ago if she could define these marriages for me. This article certainly does!] These are all “traditional” Arabic marriage forms, though… they just aren’t the normal Sunni marriages we tend to think of.

Ms. Al-Khalaf is not amused, however, because she see them at utterly detrimental to women’s rights and dignity. Read the entire piece and see what you think. She invites your comments.