Each month, Weekend will pose a different question to be discussed by a series of female Emirati columnists. This week, we ask Bushra Al Hashemi:
How are Emirati women’s attitudes changing towards marriage in today’s UAE?
Men and women are forgetting the reasons behind a “real” marriage. Many distract themselves from caring about the most important matters. But marriage is a companionship, it’s a new life and it’s one of the pillars of a complete society.
Real marriages, in my eyes, are what our parents have had for 30 or so years, or what our grandparents had for more than 50 years. Women of these generations have witnessed tremendous love and passion – love that does not stop after the first baby comes. It’s a bond that grows stronger and happier.
In a marriage, it’s not the party and the honeymoon from where happiness comes. And, for many women, neither is a good-looking, muscled man that “would let me do whatever I want”.
Younger girls should think about the values that they want in their partner. How is he with his parents? And how is his presence respected in a majlis of men? She should find a man with a conscience – “elli kilmetah ma yethaneeha” – who will always follow and act upon his promises and principles.
These kind of traits – and similar ones in a woman – take a relationship to an unbreakable bond, a bond that will then grow and evolve throughout the years.
Being madly in love is not the only indicator of a successful marriage. There’s no such thing as “married happily ever after”; it’s with both happiness and sorrow together that the days flower.
The bond of marriages are breaking internationally now, and people are waiting longer to decide on it. But I was thrilled to hear from a 22-year-old friend, recently married, and to hear her mother’s advice.
“It is not only about love,” her mother said. “It’s about mawwada [affection] and rahma [mercy] between the two, like how the Quran has described it.” Mawwada in Arabic is a very strong feeling of acceptance and belonging, but it doesn’t only translate to love. And my friend said: “My mother is right.”
The attitudes and expectations that one has when one is ready to be married are key to point the course of the marriage. Some expect too much, and some expect differently. But the best way is to not expect at all. Even when they know each other, people change after marriage. Sometimes, it’s more daring and braver to go in with no expectations. Look at it as a journey that you are open to wherever it may lead. Enjoy the times of excitement but embrace those of crises.
In marriage, two people evolve together in a combination that creates a home of one in the other. Marriage itself is an unchanged concept, and even if attitudes have changed, marriage itself has not: it’s the one tradition that would carry you towards a long-lasting fairy tale – not an imaginary Cinderella one, but just what our grandparents had.
Bushra Al Hashemi is a features writer with The National
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