Nas minhas fuçadas virtuais, achei um post bem bacana de um egípcio falando sobre a questão do casamento naquele país. Vou copiar abaixo (em inglês) e o post original está aqui .

Basicamente, ele fala alguns pontos que seriam de muita polêmica se falados abertamente, apesar de quase a maioria dos egípcios concordar com isso mas tem medo de assumir. Eu comentei no blog dele e sugeri que ele se casasse com uma estrangeira ahahaha Nada contra as egípcias, adoro elas e conheço muitas, mas sei que para se libertar dessa tradição vai ser mais fácil começar com os homens, as mulheres infelizmente ainda vivem muito mais oprimidas pelo que a família acha melhor:

- O sistema patriarcal reforçado por diversas tradições e homens sempre visto como donos do poder, criou um falso senso de “obediência” que cabe a mulher (o termo existe no Islã, mas não tem esse sentido que é aplicado hoje em dia em locais como o Egito), que no fim se resume apenas a ser uma boa “empregada doméstica” e fazem com que as mulheres tenham uma personalidade infantilizada.

- Os homens ficam extremamente pressionados, sendo totalmente responsáveis por todos os custos de vida do casal e futura família, mesmo a mulher sendo estudada e podendo também ter sua vida profissional, isso fica sempre relegado para um segundo plano.

- As famílias quando buscam um casamento, não estão de olho na felicidade em si dos filhos, mas num orgulho social, de mostrar onde é a casa, como é a festa, etc.

- Muitas mulheres não se conformam com este modelo, mas estão presas em uma jaula familiar.

E o final, para sacudir: “In respecting the status of women, I will never pay everything in advance for her in order to get her a full-time job as a my house maid.”

Se alguém quer a tradução do google, pode usar esse link: http://translate.google.com.br/translate?u=http://www.anegyptianjournalist.com/2010/09/the-egyptian-marriage-model/&sl=en&tl=pt&hl=&ie=UTF-8.

Agora o artigo completo:

The Egyptian Marriage Model

My search for marriage came naturally: as I proceed with my life, I felt I need to be part of some social institution that moves me ahead as well as another person. Marriage is a wonderful idea ( All credit goes to God ). A male and a female get close to each other, love living with each other and here you go. Now another life engine is turned on to advance human life.

But if you are an Egyptian, it’s not as simple as mentioned above. In Egypt marriage is regarded as the conclusion of one’s life; The end goal that proves a ‘man’ is well and able. Egyptian marriages are a life-terminator, not the motivation or the life boost I’m looking for.

The Egyptian marriage model is medieval at best. A male dominates the institution and hereby takes all power in it. The social structure of the proceedings of marriage and its ” aftermath ” emanates from certain values rooted in Egyptian culture. A culture which finds its sources of values and ethics mainly in Islam and Arab culture.

In Islam, God ordered men to take full responsibility for all living expenses for the whole family. That includes a dowry to the woman, a house, plus other things exaggerated by local cultures. In return, Islam gave the man the ultimate power solely in the marriage institution. His wife should literally be ‘ obedient ‘ to him and so are all the offspring. Lots of Islamic literature enforces the idea that an obedient woman is a good woman, otherwise she goes to hell and is held accountable.

Local cultures, as patriarchal and male-dominated as Egypt’s, invented their own confirmations of such ‘obedience’ value. Such values place a woman as only a child caretaker and a house maid. In other words, It seems a woman shouldn’t raise an argument against  husband domination since ‘he’ provides for everything !

In more practical terms, I’d like to give you a glimpse into what is practically an Egyptian marriage?

A young Egyptian man graduates from university. Lucky or skilled, he finds a job and gets a decent salary. He finds a woman ( or she finds him ) and proposes. As usual, he , along with his parents, go to the woman’s family armed with the best negotiation skills to work out a ‘marriage deal’. If agreed, then the deal looks less or more as follows:

- The young man makes an engagement with the woman. Usually takes several months to two years. Meanwhile he saves for the upcoming expenses.

- The man is asked to ‘buy’ not ‘rent’ an apartment. The woman’s family treat that as a safe haven for a woman’s future and a source of societal pride. The apartment costs at least 120,000 Egyptian pounds = 22,000 US $  to 500,000 = 100,000 US $.

- In furnishing the apartment, the woman’s family are quite understanding of the unfair balance in expenses. So they split all furnishing in almost half. I’m not sure of the details.

- And in celebrating the fortunate culmination of this effort, a man pays for the marriage wedding ( that’s different from an earlier engagement wedding ). That wedding costs an average of 15,000 Egyptian pounds to a hundred in some situations.

- Happily married and socially proud, the couple enters a marriage. The man is entitled, by Islam, to take the sole responsibility for the living expenses. He is the workaholic who brings money to the house. The woman is the one who manages that money wisely to raise the children virtuously.

This sick model might have been compatible with some medieval or bronze-age cultures where women were dependent. In modern times, women have the right to work and they do.

As a working young man living in a commercial capital such as Cairo I find it unfair and insane for me to follow that model. The questions I ask are:

- Why should I own an apartment? A quarter of a million pounds can be invested in a new business that creates lots of money in the long run and benefits us all. Why can’t we just rent an apartment?. There is no answer to the question from the part of the woman’s family.

- Why should ‘I’ buy or rent ?. Why doesn’t the woman share?. I won’t mind paying for all of it if she is not working or not able. But as I will only be marrying a working woman, why doesn’t she?. Actually the idea that a man is ‘ordered’ to pay for it all has no rational basis. And the woman who happily accepts that while being able to pay is abusive in fact.

- I’m a man and I’m not happy about it. Why a wife should be ‘obedient’ to her husband?. Aren’t we embarrassed of the word ‘obedient’ when we utter it?. Women already express reservations on the term but they can hardly dare to criticize the religious concept. I’m not buying a slave. In these times, the society needs women are independent thinking agents for the good of themselves and for the good of society.

I guess these are the basic why’s I can offer. I seek an institution where equal partners both lead a good life. Where decision making is taken by both for the happiness of both. And where the institution, as well-managed as it should be by both, happiness and self-fulfillment should be the result of that relationship. That institution is a brilliant idea to move society forwards. It wasn’t meant to terminate one’s life and turn him/her into a machine barely able to fund the ongoing expenses of life.

I suggest that both men and women of out society be more independent of their families. Those families seek only one thing beside our ‘happiness’ of course: They seek social pride. Where is the apartment?, how big?, furniture, wedding hall, dowry in addition to a number of nincompoopery.

Women who want to marry here are not devils and most would tell that they dislike this marriage model because it’s unfair for the man and it’s such a big obstacle in life. But none of these women will be able to get out of the cage of parenthood that forces them to do things for social pride and social conformity.

It takes rebels, reformists, passionate individuals to lead by example. It needs couples who won’t care for the social pride and gossip that flavors all our marriages to change this situation. In a developing economy like ours with a sick job market, it’s crazy to raise the financial standards of marriages to that level.

In the end of this survey of the Egyptian marriage model, I hereby declare:

My name is Mohamed, a young working Egyptian man who is able to fund a traditional marriage model but won’t because it doesn’t make sense.

I will not kneel to pre-medieval concepts for the sake of social pride and social conformity.

In respecting the status of women, I will never pay everything in advance for her in order to get her a full-time job as a my house maid.

Praise to the nonconformists.