Trivial Issues Affecting Saudi Women

Monday, 16 October 2006
By Sabria S Jawhar
The Saudi Gazette

Sometimes officials overlook certain practices in Saudi society, not because they are “trivial or individual cases” as they claim, but because they cannot or do not want to look at the bigger picture. They fail to see what local customs and practices affecting women have on society and the Kingdom’s economy.
Yesterday, for instance, Okaz, the Arabic-language daily newspaper, published a report of a Saudi female doctor who fled the Kingdom with her non-Saudi husband because her uncles refused to accept the marriage despite its religious and legal validity. The non-Saudi husband has the same nationality as his wife’s mother.
This makes me wonder: Where was that refusal when the doctor’s father married her non-Saudi mother? Why didn’t the father’s brothers refuse or interfere? Was it because the doctor’s father was the strong side of the relationship according to their perception? Or are Saudi men entitled to marry women from all nationalities while the precious Saudi woman should not be touched by a man who is inferior to a Saudi?
You might also wonder why would a couple leave the country if their marriage was legal? The answer is that two months ago the media reported a similar case where a couple was divorced not because they wanted to but because the wife’s brothers believed the husband’s blood was inferior to theirs. The case was submitted to the Ministry of Justice, but a decision has not been finalized. The divorce was issued much faster by the court in Jouf.
It seems to me that our female doctor learned the lesson of the couple that was forced to divorce and realized that the court might not give her the justice she is seeking. So she decided to protect her marriage and flee.
In both cases, the women’s choices were not respected nor taken into consideration either by their male relatives or by the court, which was complicit in abusing them by enforcing rules that have nothing to do with Islam.
Islam gave the woman her due right to choose and to ask a male guardian to get her married to whomever she accepted as long as he is a good Muslim. Color, nationality or social class are not considered an issue in Islam
Recent statistics show that Saudi females comprise of 58 percent of the registered students at establishments of higher education in the Kingdom.
This means that more than 50 percent of the country’s education budget is allocated to women.
If the average age for a women to obtain her doctorate degree is 30 and above, this means that more than half of the post-graduate students fall in the category of “spinster” according to the Saudi standard.
This leaves the woman two choices. She either stays unmarried, which will decrease the birth rate and the population growth in the country during the coming years, or she gets married to a non-Saudi, which is highly preferred by most of the highly educated women.
By marrying a Saudi while above the age of 30, a woman risks marrying a much older man who may be already married with children or a man who is less educated and may be dependent on her for income.
Many educated women over the age of 30 prefer non-Saudis because they respect their profession and more than likely will treat her as a partner.
But what did Saudi officials think would happen to the 50 percent of the education budget if the majority of educated women were faced by the same situation like that of our doctor and flee the country?
Did they think once about creating a system that governs such small but important details in our daily life?
Regulations that govern the guardianship and the extent of the male relatives interference in women’s affairs must be reviewed not just for the sake of the society’s fiber and structure, but for the sake of the country’s economy. We are not ready to lose these qualified women and the benefits they offer Saudi society simply because they followed their hearts and asked for their due right to have a partner other than a Saudi.
More than 35.7 percent of the Saudi women in the Kingdom have exceeded the age of marriage, according to the Saudi society standard of age 30.
Must the Saudi courts be so careless with its women by considering such trivial issues as race and nationality when it comes to marriage?