Forced marriages

Shortly after puberty, males and females of the Arab world are continuously pressured to get married. I know because I've been suffering from that for the majority of my life.

But some think that people actually get forced to get into these marriage agreements with total strangers. Something which I personally think is not true, however, there's a HUGE amount of pressure applied to both males and females

But do parents resort to forcing their sons and daughters to get married?

Force is a big word. There is no force here. Parents do EVERYTHING they can to convince their sons and daughters to get married, because at the end of the day, they will be asked and their agreement is one of the required conditions for the marriage.

Here's what happened personally to me...

I was pressured so much that I ended up accepting my families wishes (before someone gets a heart-attack) and ended up getting engaged to someone I hardly knew, hardly had anything in common and above all, didn't really like the person. We were dissimilar, we hardly communicated. To sum it up, we were a disaster waiting to happen!

Under pressure, I had to try my best to make it work, but at the end I was about to explode, and called the whole thing off. It ended up costing me so dearly as even with a simple engagement the amount of resources I had to pour in it was HUGE. The guy gets only half of what he promised. So half moqaddam (dowry) half mo2akhar (late dowry) plus I won't be taking any gifts or whatever from the thing. So it was a good chunk of change down the drain.

The moral of the story is that surrendering to this pressure is really not the answer (male or female), the results could be catastrophic. And trust me, no body gets a stroke from their children not accepting to marry but many DO get stroke when their sons and daughters get divorced

I know that the Arab world has issues with the way they force people to get married, but I also see some good into it. For example, men and women are not in complete ownership over this decision. It's family based, the whole family come into the aid of their son or daughter to make it happen. Which is a fantastic thing instead of having the whole weight of everything dumped on the head of the bride and the groom.

Many exaggerate that the system is somehow unfair to women. Although, I personally and strongly believe that it's in fact in favor of women. There isn't a single moment in the woman's life that she feels more appreciated than the packs of grooms flock to her house just to have the honor of meeting her. She has the option to kick them out, or to accept.

But that's not all. IF she already has someone in mind, like a boyfriend, his next step would be to propose to her family. Similar to "meeting the father" on the night of the prom in the west. With it's own set of differences of course.

Now, I used to think that process of meeting brides to be so unjust, but if a lady can't find a groom on her own through her social interactions. Then why not have the family allow people to come and see her? How is this different than going on a blind date? Other than a blind date isn't supervised and the end result is never marriage, but "we'll see"

It's in the best interest of the families to actually listen to their sons and daughters before trying to pressure them into a marriage that they will not be happy with. For it's really easier to deal with a non-married son or daughter, than have them return in few months time, broken and divorced