1. Some get married to have a better life; some do it just to keep the tradition going, some to control the
wife, some to control the husband, and some to control each other. Some get married to have one
child, two children, and some do not care how many children they will ever have as long as they have
them. I haven't seen yet any couple who got married and took a pause to think why am I getting
married?
Well, this preamble came to my mind when at last I watched S and city part 2. I must say that it was not
boring apart from the fact that they had no idea about the Arabic culture and tradition even though one
of the girls did try to read to understand the dos and don’ts, and also the horny one continued to be
horny despite the fact that her hormones were taken away at the airport! coming to an Islamic culture
to her was not anything to worry about, I don’t know why the Americans continue to insist on selling
films via thrills, we are not idiots any more that we will go to a movie just to see some flesh, and sorry to
say, the movie portrays a bad picture about American women, I do not think that they are like that at all.
Beside the fact that Abu Dhabi should sue them for bad publicity, I think the producer did a bad job, first
the terrain was not ours, nor where the women wearing those veils, their accent is not Emirati.
Secondly, has he or she ever thought that us the Arabs may watch it and criticize it. He or she must have
thought that the censorship in our countries will stop us from watching such movies that have double
meanings; come on guys, I think they are really taking us lightly. If I was the person who spent
extravagantly on a PR company and showed the lavish life one can have in our hotels, and then the PR
company representative goes against our tradition and offend us, of course I will cancel the meeting, it
doesn’t matter to me what I spent, it matters to me that the PR company is not going to paint a very
colorful picture about my hotel. We in the Middle East have other things to worry about and we do not
need a replica of a Samantha in our lives.
Back to Marriage, I was saying that I have not heard or seen anyone stopping to think what one needs
from a marriage prior to marriage. Why don’t we? I remember myself prior to my marriage imagining
how my house will look like, what names I will call my kids, which countries we will be travelling too,
what friends are we going to have; never once did I think of why am I marrying? Is it because I wanted
companionship? Or am I marrying just because it is a fact of life? If I never got married, what will I be
missing? First thing that will come to my mind is children! Of course I will be missing my children? What
about the person I am marrying? Where is he in the equation? What sort of discussions will we be
having? What type of movies will we be watching? Are we going to have coffee together? Does he even
drink coffee? Is he going to love me all his life? Am I going to love him all my life? What kind of
disagreements are we going to have? What are we going to disagree on? Is it the color of the sofa or the
type of paint? Or what I say when I meet people? Or what he says when he meets people? Who is
buying the groceries? Who is responsible for the bills? Who is going to spend on the education of our
children? Are we going to have a joint bank account or a separate one? Is there going to be a fund for

2. travelling? Is he going to buy the tickets, and I pay for the hotels? Or is there a pot that we save into for
our holidays? Does he like to travel at all? Is he fond of reading? Is he going to be annoyed when I read a
book and want to talk about it with him? Am I going to be upset when his family comes around to visit?
Will he leave me few nights a week to be with guys like him? Will I have a girl’s night out? Should we
have one bathroom for both of us or two, what are our bathroom habits? Do we like to read our books
and magazines while we are inside our bathrooms while the other person is waiting to take his/her
shower? Will the other person be upset if we do not close the tooth paste container? Who is going to be
mad when we do not place our socks in place? Are we going to help in house chores? There could be lot
more questions, and none of these should be swept under the carpet, they are valid questions, and they
need to be asked before the marriage takes place, we do not want divorces! The statistics in the Middle
East are horrifying, one in three marriages is a failure.
I think that we should have a mini MBA (Marriage by Acquiescence) course for kids aged 18-30 to teach
them the ins and outs of marriage, and how to make it successful. One side of it of course is the most
thought of side which is Sex, which needs to be explored and explained, as we have no idea what it is,
and why it is. How to talk? What to wear? When to talk? What to eat? And how to eat are some of the
things that we need to teach in that course. Also the questionnaires, we need to ask the pre-marriage
couples to write every question that comes to their minds or think of every eventualities and write them
down, hoping of course that by the end of the course these questions would have been answered.
I am not saying that we the parents are not capable of raising our kids to know these things? We the
parents have not got the proper training to answer the above questions, and we had entered the realm
of marriage with the intention of having kids and continuing life the way our parents had it, so of course
the wrong can only produce more wrong. The day and age we live in provided the children with a
picture that is totally misleading; everything is out in the open and is not portrayed properly either ( no
one has sex on top of a car boot, its in the movies only) and with all the knowledge that is out there we
have to start showing young couples the proper ways of lives. Marriage is not about controlling your
partner, and marriage is not about kids, marriage is about companionship, and that is what I hope kids
will learn before marching into the unknown.
Sorry to be so blunt in my blog, I think we need to be.