Back when I was a utility meter reader, I had two major concerns in my life – What was the weather going to be each day, and who was I going to marry? The first concern stemmed from the fact that I worked outdoors for up to 7 hours each day, while the second concern stemmed from my need to take what I saw as the defining step into true adulthood. I learned to cope with weather issues, usually by utilizing appropriate clothing. And while appropriate clothing certainly enters into the equation of finding a healthy long-term relationship, I tended to deal with my marriage concerns by indulging in long hours mind-numbing worry, interspersed by slightly fewer hours of complaining about my singleness to my friends.
Here in Qatar, where I work indoors and remain happily married, these concerns have (thankfully) been left behind. However, as I spoke to my students this morning about both the weather and marriage, I wondered how my anxiety levels might have been different had I been raised in the climate and culture of Qatar.
Let's deal with the weather first. Most of the time Qatar is hot. Very hot. Imagine hell (temperature-wise), but with more shopping malls and construction. That's what the average Qatari is used to when it comes to weather. So during the winter months, when the temperatures hover in the teens (celsius, of course), the Qataris think that it's wonderful. I myself was very happy when I felt my first "cool" breeze here, sometime in October or November. But I have to admit that January nights (and sometimes mornings) can be cold enough to be slightly uncomfortable.
This morning it was about 11 or 12 degrees as I was walking across campus, and the sky was completely covered in clouds (a situation that happens rarely here – I can count on one hand the number of cloud-covered skies I've seen since coming here). Generally, Larissa and I enjoy the sun (especially the afternoon winter sun, when it's 19 or 20 degrees outside) and we expected that most of the human race would share a similar opinion. Not so, I discovered today.
When I was talking with my students this morning about why some people were late or absent from class, they said that on days with wonderful weather like today, they would like to skip school and spend it outside. I looked at them and said "You realize that it's only 11 or 12 degrees out, and the entire sky is cloudy!" "Of course, teacher," they replied, "This weather is perfect! Nice and cool, and no hot sun. We even like to go swimming in the sea on days like today!" I couldn't believe it.
But what affected me more was the conversation we had after class. I'm not sure where this came from, but three of my students decided to ask me what the deal was with wives and girlfriends in North America. They didn't understand how a wife and a girlfriend are connected to each other. Do you have a wife and a girlfriend on the side? How many can you have? They wanted me to explain it.
So I drew some diagrams on the board about how relationships progress in North America, and tried to relate it to what I understood the Qatari experience of romance to be. I said that you start out as strangers, and then become friends (sometimes, but not always), followed by dating, engagement, and marriage. I also explained how most couples in our culture like to live together for a while before marriage, which astounded my students. This led me to explain about the differences in North American social and behavioral norms over the last century, and how culture has changed to become more accepting of non Judeo-Christian rules for romantic encounters.
My students found it hard to accept the idea of dating someone, breaking up, and then dating someone else. I'm guessing that the idea of having your heart ripped apart several times during one's dating experience did not seem very appealing to them. I have to say that their perspective has some merit. They also were amazed that our culture would permit people to live together and have sex before marriage. In Qatar, that sort of behaviour would be grounds for imprisonment, and possible execution. Foreigners engaged in this sort of behaviour would probably just be deported.
My students also asked me about having children. Did I have any? How many did I want to have? Why did I wait so long to have children? In their minds, the longer one waits to have children, the harder it will be to relate to them or have the energy to properly raise them. If you're past 25 years old and do not have children, you've done something wrong.
I told my students that Larissa and I will have our first child sometime in the next couple years, and that we'll probably have 2 or 3 at the most. "Why so few, teacher?" they asked. In their culture, 3 children is considered a small family. 5 or 6 children would probably be average, while 10 children is not as rare as you might think.
I said that I would have been happy to have had children when I was younger, but that it just took me this long to find a good wife. "Why so long, teacher?" they said. "Well," I said, "It takes a while to find someone who you can connect well with, and even then, there's no guarantee that she will like you in the same way. It takes time to make it work. And I had some growing to do before I was ready to be married," I said. They had a hard time understanding this.
"Teacher, we don't understand. What's the big worry? When it's time to get married, your family will introduce you to someone, and if you get along, you get married. If not, you say no. Why so complicated?" I explained to them that in my culture, you're pretty much on your own when it comes to meeting someone and making things work. There's no real support system or matchmaking team behind you in the process. It takes a while to meet someone, get to know them, and then be sure that you're making the right decision to marry.
In Qatari culture (as far as I understand it), a young man will get married at 20 or 21, when he's finishing up his schooling. His mother and sisters will scope out a good potential marriage choice from their social circles and introduce the young lady to the young man. These two will have a series of supervised social interactions over the course of several months, and if they both like each other, the marriage takes place a few months later. The entire process of meeting, getting to know each other, getting engaged, and getting married takes maybe 6 months at the most.
Before I came here, I was under the impression that marriages here were all arranged by the family, and while it's true that the rest of the family is far more involved in the courtship process than they are in North America, I was told that if either of the potential marriage partners are not happy with the match, the courtship is canceled and another candidate is sought out. Another interesting twist is that for most of these young people, meeting their potential spouse will most likely be the first time they have spoken with anyone of the opposite sex outside of their immediate family. Just the wonder and curiosity of interacting with a boy or girl for the first time may be enough to cause a significant emotional bond.
I have to say that in some ways I envy the Qatari way of matchmaking. I literally spent years in paralyzing anxiety, worrying about who I was going to marry. These Qatari men don't even think about it until they're 20 or 21, and then most of the work in finding someone is taken care of. All they need to do is approve or disapprove. There's no searching, no pick-up lines, no dating websites, no drunken regrets, and no game-playing. Some might argue that there's no love either, but it seems like the process allows enough time for the seed of love to develop, and then plants it through marriage so that it can grow in a committed context. As long as you have a good family who has the best interests of the potential spouses at heart, it seems like a system with many advantages.
Of course, it may be that people find themselves pressured into a marriage before they're ready, or because the family wants the union more than the "lovers" themselves. But that's not to say that the chances of success are any lower than in North America. Plenty of people chose their own marriage partners, only to find themselves in a loveless or abusive relationship. The benefit of the Qatari situation is that the family is seen as an extended resource, not just for helping create the marriage, but in helping to maintain it as well. It's a completely different mindset which I admire, but which would be impossible to import into modern North American culture.
I'm very happy with my marriage to Larissa, and I'm glad that we took the time to get to know each other and to grow as individual adults before we were married. However, sometimes I wish that I had spent my twenties worrying less about relationship issues, and more about the weather. Here in Qatar, most people don't seem to be too worried about either.
If any of you, my loyal readers, have taken the time to read Ecclesiastes (in a reputable English translation) you know that a popular phrase of that book is that "there is nothing new under the sun". And while that may have been true for 99% of human history, I would like to humbly submit that in the modern age, we do indeed experience new things that have never been seen before. One such thing that I would like to share some thoughts with you about is: seedless fruit.
Alright, I have to throw this thought out to the world, because I can't imagine that I'm alone in this, but I've never heard anyone else mention this particular problem. Here's the setup:
