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muse

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Online matchmaking a hit with Saudi couples
By AFP
Published: February 13, 2013


RIYADH: In ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are strictly segregated, traditional matchmakers face tough competition from blossoming marriage services on online social networks.

More than 200 Twitter accounts and dozens of other forums on the Internet offer services for Saudi men and women seeking spouses, angering matchmakers like Um Sami who sees it as “organised prostitution.”

“Social networks undermine our work and everything they offer is virtual: they use nicknames and they are not reliable,” said Um Sami, an elderly woman and well-established matchmaker from the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

For her, many of these websites are “fraudulent” and some are even an organised form of prostitution.

“Marriage via online platforms is one hundred percent doomed to failure,” she said, stressing that only her traditional matchmaking method can lead to a successful marriage.

For matchmakers like Um Sami the business has flourished by word of mouth.

Families ready to marry off their offsprings contact her with details about their children and provide pictures which she carries around with her on rounds to match candidates.

But her job is not a simple one because, as she says, there are many different types of weddings that can be contracted in Saudi Arabia, from the traditional unions to unconventional ones by Western standards such as the “misyar” marriage
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A misyar – or “visitor’s” marriage – is one in which couples live separately but can meet up when they want, usually for sexual encounters.

It is allowed in Saudi Arabia but couples who choose to go that way will keep it a family secret shared only with the matchmake
r.

In a traditional union sealed with the help of Um Sami, the bride and groom each pay the matchmaker around 2,000 riyals.

But the fee for a misyar wedding is much higher and usually starts around 5,000 riyals – with the man alone having to foot the bill while his spouse continues to live in her own home.

Misyar is often the marriage of choice for polygamous men as well as divorcees and widows in Saudi Arabia, where extra-marital relations are strictly banned and punishable under rigid Islamic laws.

A couple caught having sex out of wedlock in Saudi Arabia are sentenced to stoning and lashes, and unmarried couples who dare share a meal in a restaurant or spend time together alone risk being arrested.

Human rights activists and intellectuals have slammed misyar marriages as a form of “legalised adultery.”

Offers to help seal both traditional marriages and misyars are rife on the Internet.

The website khtabh.net allows men and women to post their requests.

One message reads: “Misyar marriage wanted immediately in Riyadh… and the matchmaker or mediator will be offered a big reward.”

Candidates are also asked to give personal details, including their marital status, monthly salary, education and a brief description of who they are and what they look like.

A man wanting to marry has posted a request on one such site for a “tender, quiet, good humoured and plump” wife.

A woman from Riyadh with special needs said she was 23 “pretty, blind, fair-skinned. Willing to marry a normal, non-smoking man even if he is polygamous as long as his first wife is informed.”

Both online matchmaking sites in Saudi Arabia and matchmakers frown upon more unorthodox forms of marriage such as “misfar” and “misyaf” marriages for men who travel frequently or spend each summer abroad.

“There are so many offers which one finds tempting to try, but my friends have warned me against certain websites that can be traps,” said 20-year-old Amjad Ismael.

Many online matchmaking services ask for a deposit upfront, he said.

Abu Mohammed, a 40-year-old who is already married and is looking for a second wife, said he has had a “bad experience” with online matchmakers.

“They are not serious. They try to take advantage of people contacting them, especially if they are married,” he said. “I have now decided to go back to the traditional matchmaker to ensure confidentiality.”

But younger people still prefer social networks as a tool to tie the knot “because they are an easy way to get to know each other,” said sociologist Abu Bakr Baqdar.

“In the past, people got to know one another through families and neighbours,” he said. Young people are now looking for “less traditional means to meet away from their families’ interference.”
 
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So,.... hoz it going? Yeaah, so , what up?! Any Saudi able to help us understand?
 
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:lol: In India, social network has helped to know more about the person, one wants to marry.

Well for instance, a guy can find a girl according to compatibility with him and his family. Both can check each other's Facebook profile and read their comments, likes, dislikes and what type of people they are connected to.

Parents of the family can check LinkedIn profile of the person they are interested in. See the recommendations and confirm his/her position, educational qualifications etc.

Many other aspects that makes these Matrimonial sites and Social Networking sites much better.
 
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Well I'd like to avoid the sectarian thing - but I would really like to understand better, how this came about and why it came about - because it seems that our view of the Sodie may be off the warm and that they are pretty easy going, as long as there is money changing hands
 
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Well, it seems that there is a lot more to these peninsula and Gulf arabs, below is a documentary that suggests a society in flux:


Saudi Arabian Web Cam Girls - YouTube


And it seems social media, the internet are a phenomenon that cannot be controlled
 
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@muse Sir MEMRI is a propegenda source.
 
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They give Shias grief for mutah but got "misyar" for themselves. Oh the irony....

its like the west, the west decides what is a good terrorist and a bad terrorist...
and for them they decide what is Halal and Haram....:coffee: anything that makes them happy becomes Halal for them, and Haram for others.... and I'm talking about some Shieks who come up with fatwas and such......

Double standard !
 
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Propaganda, Double standards, hypocrisy --- however, about this Misyar and Misyaf, what are we to make of this??

Wahabis make a big deal of pointing fingers and getting people killed the world over - and yet in their own society...well, maybe that the secret to them, so long as they can point fingers oversees and get people killed, they think they will escape negotiating modernity??

I'm a bit confused as to why these Misyar and Misyaf, even exist - because to my mind they create societal hpocrisy - however, if we think of society changing, and really there is no manual for this change, why not separate religion from society, at least that way the contamination is limited, the sacral kept sacral
 
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A couple caught having sex out of wedlock in Saudi Arabia are sentenced to stoning and lashes, and unmarried couples who dare share a meal in a restaurant or spend time together alone risk being arrested.

If that is really the law 75% of young men and women would be in jail..... Appearances, appearances. The government is trying to keep up the appearance of Shariah Law to the Islamic nutjobs in the country but not really practice the law for the liberal masses of the country.

Oh how I pity those Royals, caught between a rock and a hard place. But they seem to juggle it all so well actually.
 
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