An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings
Do Saudis Approve of Pedophelia?
Now, this is seriously WRONG! When you read this column, from a Westerner’s prospective, you have to wonder.
To each, a marriage of his choice
As if one kind of marriage is not enough, each year people come up with new names for temporary marriages and they give them names like “mesiar” and “mesfar”. “Mesiar” is a marriage with no responsibilities, where the husband visits his wife at her family’s house and does not bear any responsibilities toward her.
“Mesfar” marriage is used by women mostly to be able to travel abroad with a “mahram,” as they are required to have the approval of a legal guardian for traveling. Then someone devised a new kind of marriage to make life easier for female students who have to study abroad.
Now the latest entry is called “wanasa” marriage, and it is devised for men, mostly old men who need company. The scholar who introduced the concept of “wanasa” marriage is a teacher of Islamic Studies at Imam Muhammad Bin Saudi University.
So here we go, our men and women have all the choice in the world. They can pick and choose which kind of partner they want as if in a supermarket. There is a choice for all occasions. How flexible we have become!
I have a question. Since, to my limited understanding of Islam, a man can murder his ‘wife’ if she isn’t a virgin. So, when you have such temporary “marriages”, is there a physical aspect? What happens to the “wife” when the mission is accomplished?
But the “wanasa” marriage is something else, apart from the humorous aspect of its name, which means “fun company.” No wonder readers of the news item online made jokes about their miserable marriages. Quite simply the idea behind such marriage is: Old people who live alone need company. In some cases, old men go for the option of the traditional marriage, which is fair if they choose wives of a certain age, but then we hear about cases where a 70-year-old is proposing to marry a 12-year-old. This is still happening in our society. The latest news is about a man in Hail who is over 60 and is finalizing the formalities to marry a 10-year-old girl. Alarabiya website, which carried the news item, mentioned that a lot of people have raised objections to the marriage, though it has the approval of the girl’s father.
I’d like to know what kind of father would approve of a marriage of their ten, or twelve year old daughter? Do they value their children so little?
Last month a Saudi marriage official who appeared in LBC channel, said that girls can be married off by their fathers even when they are toddlers, but the consummation of marriage has to wait until she becomes 9 years old. Naturally the comment drew a huge amount of criticism, and rightly so. But the negative effect of what the official said won’t go that easily; it simply says that there are some people who think this way, they consider a daughter a property that can be given as a gift whenever her father wishes. In the official’s case, some religious scholars have also denounced those comments, saying that the courts should stop processing such contracts, making sure that there is no huge disparities between the ages of a man and his bride. A member of Islamic Jurisdiction Society said that he also stressed that fathers have to ask the girl if she approves of the marriage, saying it is essential for the legality of the contract. We hope that such scholars will be given more access to the public. They should be the ones giving lectures and talks about Islamic views and issues. We understand that some parts of our society is steeped in tribal laws that refuse to be changed but enlightened scholars should visit those areas and address those problems. We just hope to hear less of those semi-scholars who like to shock the public, or those who are busy devising new ways to enable men to exercise their infinite power over their women relatives.
Yes, I do realize it’s a completely different culture. However, I question the sanity of a culture that has so little regard for the female population that they’d basically sell their little girls to perverted old men. What happens to the child when the old dog dies? Does she go back to live with her family to be ’sold’ again? Is she murdered in an “honor” killing? Nice of ‘em to allow the so called father to ask if the child wants to marry an old man. What happens if she says no? Is she beaten until she says yes? I have a real problem with a society that thinks marriage can be temporary for convenience sake, and marrying off young girls to old men. I know that in past centuries, this was common practice. People didn’t live as long, but this is the 21st century, and things have changed. Evidently, not in Muslim cultures though.
I think of my nine year old granddaughter, and wonder.
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Nothing to see here move along.
they’re hypocrites. Mohammed consummated his marriage with that 9 yo girl, now why shouldn’t men today do the same if their prophet did it? sick people!
@cristina:
Oh yeah….sick is a polite way of putting it.