It will make your head spin how quickly your family switches from Mormons to matchmakers. One day, you’re casually chatting with your parents, sipping tea, talking about work, life, the weather and out of nowhere, they tell you they’ve been praying that you get married and have kids. You’ll be gagged–at least I was. From no mingling allowed to unsolicited prayers for a partner: how does this happen? And more importantly, why does it happen this way?
Growing up in the West, the idea of dating feels simple: meet someone, get to know them, if you like them enough, marry them. There’s room to breathe. On our side of the world, it’s…trickier. Speaking to the opposite gender is 3eib, deeper friendships with the opposing sex are frowned upon, and God forbid your cousins see you carpooling with a colleague. So, when exactly are you supposed to meet someone, get to know them and— oh, I don’t know— maybe marry them?
Mom actually believes that I should marry without knowing the man before marriage, we’re in 2025 ffs but Arab parents will never change she always tells me I met your father a few times when we got engaged
— Aliyah (@egyptianfairiee) January 9, 2025
After speaking to friends, one thing is clear: both men and women in the Middle East navigate a minefield of parental expectations, societal contradictions, and unspoken rules. The pressure to uphold purity and morality is intense, which means most people date in secret, far away from the public eye. Everyone is doing it, no one talks about it. But secrecy only reinforces the idea that getting to know someone is inherently wrong unless done the right way, read: family-approved, high-pressure setups that often involve more people than you’d like or are necessary.
Familial opinions take centre stage before the couple even gets to know each other. And let’s be honest, people are different around their parents. Especially Arabs. Couples get to know an entirely different person to the one they end up saying “yes” to. Under the watchful eye of both families, it’s not unusual for a game of charades to begin, where every word, every move is carefully calculated— because God forbid you actually show who you really are. In truth, this system fails both parties, as well as society as whole. Neither men nor women are truly able to shed the suffocating skin of religious and social expectation.
But let’s not forget that patriarchy exists and that women suffer a uniquely nuanced fate in this paradigm. Here lies the paradox: everyone wants to date women, but no one wants women to date. Socially, it is more acceptable for men to date, to be seen out with a woman— but for women it’s a different story. She’s going to be a wife and a mother someday, therefore, she needs to remain “unadulterated.” But, he’s a man, it’s only natural he wants to “have fun.” Thus, we have the Madonna-ification of women and the whore-ification of men by society at large.
Arab parents care wayyyyy too much about what other people in the community think of them oftentimes more then what God thinks of them
— زينة🌸 (@zainaaachafi) July 6, 2018
This binary doesn’t just reduce women to caricatures of purity and innocence; it also sets men up for a hollow and performative version of masculinity validated through conquest, where union and love become an afterthought. Living in an Arab country has given me a front-row seat to contradictions that define this dynamic. The patriarchs of a family will loudly object to the women in their family going out with men in any capacity, yet will go out with women themselves. And believe it or not, the women they go out with do not fall off coconut trees. They too, are part of families.
When I asked some friends how they would feel if their sisters dated the way they did, the response was a chorus of objections and discomfort. One admitted he hates the question, not because it’s unfair, but because it forces him to confront a truth he can’t ignore: there is a double standard, he upholds it, and cannot justify. Granted he did say he’s trying to do better.
Once again, we see the Madonna-ification of one group and the whore-ification of others—except now, these labels are handed out not just by gender, but by the choices we make. On one hand, The Good Girls, who must uphold the Madonna-like image projected onto them, and on the other, the Girls Who Go Out, branded with a big, fat scarlet letter.
There are a number of problems with this rationale. The most important? It reduces women to one-dimensional caricatures, and strips them of all individuality and complexity, inhibiting their ability to live the full human experience. Instead, women are forced to perform an identity— one they had no hand in choosing, whilst men can do more without the fear of social suicide.
There is a glaring contradiction in MENA society where it enforces strict, suffocating rules around relationships, only to expect marriages to happen on a random Thursday evening. And the kicker is that it doesn’t stop after formal engagements or marriage. A newly married couple might want to move in together after their legal ceremony, but no. That’s not the correct order. They must wait for the grand white wedding, for the official approval of everyone else before they can make personal decisions about their own lives. It’s all very annoying, to say the least.
What’s more, the existence of these social constrictions and interference strips people of a positive provision of circumstances to make truly autonomous and independent choices, out of fear of being shunned, disgraced or turned into social pariahs in a region where reputation is revered and rumors can compete with truth. The very thing this system claims to uphold— strong, lasting unions— are ultimately weakened by the restrictions it imposes. Love, trust, and compatibility cannot be built in an environment that prioritizes “what people will say” over what two people actually feel.
Beyond that, it also creates a society where trust, intimacy, and real relationships are sacrificed at the altar of “what will people say?” Everyone is forced to uphold a social standard they don’t even like, or sometimes even fully understand, when all it would take for it to disappear is for people to stop pretending.
The question is: who’s going to be brave enough to stop pretending first?
