Middle Easterns I'm curious.?

Question

prearranged marriages still going on in US in the yr 2006 ? how does the younger genration feel bout your parents telling you who you will marry,or do you get a choice ? (men & women) how many times can you say "next" ? do the woman have to give up everything & raise the husbands parents along with your own parents. do you folks get to date ? how long ? are you escorted ? what if you two just can't work it out ? is the woman, or man looked down upon when you divorce ? can you divorce? when you folks have kids will you still force them to go along with tradition ? are you (men or women) allowed to date outside your race ? if not,do you consider yourself or your parents racist. sorry if people get offened, i'm hispanic & curious about your culture.

Answer 1

I am American but married to an Indian man. The majority of Indians also have arranged marriages. I don't agree with it, accept in the case of children who would want their parents to do it for them.
Wealthier people in India tend to wait until both the man and woman are out of college. Then, when the man is around 32 and the woman around 25 they will look at the horoscopes to see if they are matching with others seekers in the local papers or sites for marriage on the net. If they come from a similar upbringing and caste, both parents will exhchange pics , then get the future bride/groom opionion. It is rare to date before an arranged marriage. WHen they are introduced one or two times before the wedding, it is in the presence of the parents. Dowry is still coming into most marriages even though it is supposedly illegal. In a nutshell, its when the brides family pays the husbands family to take her and marry her off. (Once in a while she can keep it herself for if her husband dies)
The divorce rate is veryyyy low here in India, but there is a big reason for it...the women have no where else to go because women RARELY can live on their own because they'll get robbed, or raped, or can't afford it on their own. Women are treated poorly but not as bad as some of the middle eastern places. Men in India often feel they can do as they please and hitting the wife is pretty normal behavior, as wel as cheating on her because he knows she can't leave him (literally). I have also encounterned many indians who are married for years but never have fallen in love with their spouse. It's a very sad life for many.

Answer 2

Prearranged marriages are very rare in the Middle East for the most part. In Islam, it states that the parents are to pick the woman's first husband. However, the last say is HERS. God put these requirements because the parents are wiser and more experienced in life. But, the requirements on the parents is quite extensive. And, the girl should have input in the process. The parents have to answer to God if they choose a man for his money, connections, and power and ignore the main traits of piety, kindness, gentleness, etc... In the Middle East, children value greatly the opinions of their parents with these decisions, provided they are raised with good family upbringing because they know that their parents are trying to protect them and give them a good start in life. Are there parents that have their own agenda there & are there parents that ignore the requirements that God gave them and revert back to their old culture of oppression? Sure, but luckily they are not the majority.

When you ask the second question about "having" to give up everything to care for the husbands parents...I will reword that slightly to say that they "Get to". This again is an obligation from God to care for your parents (yours and your husbands) and there is great reward for doing that. Why wouldn't you want to care for the people who gave birth to you, raised you, protected you, and provided you with a good life and kept you safe? It is your opportunity to give back to them. In my opinion, to take care of my husband's parents is an honor because he wouldn't be my husband if it wasn't for them.

Is it hard? You bet....but worth every effort.

Dating in the Middle East is not commonly accepted. However, you can go out with a group of people. Dating, one on one, is not accepted mainly because if you put a guy and a girl alone together, the opportunity for sexual tension to become out of control causing situations that puts them both in trouble tend to occur.

Because, in any religion or culture, the base of it says that these activities should only occur in the confines of marriage. This way, each individual can treasure these moments with their spouses and truly connect on a deeper level by not giving it to other people. It becomes truly special.

Also, we all know what having sex outside of marriage leads to. It leads to single parenting, young girls having children with noone to care for them and the girls don't have the maturity to care for themselves and make good decisions, let alone for a new baby. Also, STD's and HIV are less common than here.

Generally, when a couple is decided upon with all parties involved (the guy, girl, and both sets of parents), then usually they get engaged. At this time, then they are permitted to spend limited time alone. They aren't married yet, and still want to protect each others virtue.

As far as divorce. Islam (I refer back to Islam because it is the majority religion in the Middle East) allows divorce, but God said it is the most unliked permissible things to do. Everything should be tried to make the relationship work. But, in the end, if two people are truly unhappy and can't work it out, God also said that you should live a life of misery. Both men and women have the right to divorce. Yes, it is frowned upon to do so because marriage is not to be taken lightly.

As far as "forcing" your children to go along with tradition. I also think that this word is a little strong. You want them to know their heritage and be proud of it. To understand their culture and religion is truly important. I think that this a big thing missing in America because we weren't raised with culture (most of us) and so we are constantly struggling to figure out who we are. Morals and values are deeply engrained in culture and religion so that is why it is important.

As far as Islam goes, there is no prejudice against race. Malcolm X figured this out and figured out that the Nation of Islam was not true Islam when he went on his pilgrimmage. He was astounded by all races, colors, and cultures were standing side by side, equal. In Islam, it is frowned upon to marry outside of your religion. This is mainly because each religion has certain beliefs and the beliefs may be very different. This will cause conflicts on how to handle every day situations and especially on the decisions made to raise your children.

Unfortunately, we are all human, and certain prejudices were taught to us by our surroundings. So, racism does occur in the Middle East. This is NOT Islam, but the lack of the people following their religion. Am I racist? NO. But, I am not Middle Eastern. My husband is Lebanese and we are practicing Muslims. We have friends from every nationality and all over the world. To us, and his family (my family tends to be a bit racist at times but they are getting better) a person is judged by who they are, not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. To say someone is truly free from racism would be difficult, I think. Only because, maybe I don't think anything about the ethnicity of a person but I am prejudiced against trashy people in general. My dad is racist, but he was raised in small town California. And, people from the Middle East are not free from racism. I wish there was a place that truly was. Unfortunately, there is the television. When I lived over there, I was shown racism from a vairety of people because of how american women are protrayed on t.v. Over there, they think most american women are sluts. Why? well, soap operas, Baywatch, and trashy movies and music. That's why. When they see a music video protraying women wearing next to nothing on and singing about sex and "getting busy". If this is all they know about us, we can't blame them.

I hope I am able to shed some light on the culture and religion for you. I have studied the relgion and culture quite a bit.

But, I am not a religious scholor. There is a good website for questions and answers about Islam.

It is: www.islamonline.net

There are so many questions and answers for you to browse. There are sections called "ask the scholor" or "ask about Islam" Tons of questions and answers. There is also a tab for "Discovering Islam". I know your questions were not religious but Islam plays a large part in the Middle East. And...please don't believe what our media is protraying about Islam and the Middle East.

Take care.

May peace be with you.

Answer 3

sure