Stranger in a Strange Land

One of the most common questions that is posed to me is from women who are planning or thinking of marrying Egyptian men. Will they be accepted by their husbands' families? Can they work? An infinite variety of questions...

To give a fairly unsentimental view of marriage with an Egyptian, I must note that many Egyptian men would like to marry a foreigner to get a foreign passport. One can hardly blame them, since travel on an Egyptian passport is incredibly difficult these days, and there still is the old idea that somehow life outside of Egypt is better. Another reason to marry a non-Egyptian woman has to be the current culture of marriage in Egypt. When an Egyptian woman marries, she will move into a fully furnished house or apartment and she is felt to be assured of her security. The process by which a young man gets to know his future bride is largely concerned with proving his ability to provide for his wife in the appropriate manner. When I married my late husband in Canada, we paid for our own wedding and were living in an apartment that we were both gradually furnishing from IKEA and other low budget shops. I certainly never considered his earning power in the equation. Marriage for us was a partnership that was embarking on an unknown journey...this willingness to undertake a life together as partners is appreciated by many Egyptian men.

Most Egyptian mothers are not keen on having their sons marry non-Egyptian women. The resistance initially can be quite strong, but after time they can become used to having a foreign daughter-in-law. I found that the best way of getting along with my mother-in-law was to basically let her do whatever she liked when she was in my home and to agree with her in her own home. Avoided a lot of problems that way. She and I did have disagreements about childrearing since I didn't allow my kids to eat sugar in their food until they were old enough to start buying the garbage, and I didn't feel that sweet tea was an appropriate drink for an infant. I also was more strict about my children's behaviour than most Egyptian mothers that I knew. My kids went to bed at a reasonable hour and learned very early that throwing a fit over something was the fastest way to lose an argument. Years later, she admitted that she'd thought that I was nuts but the results were very good. My father-in-law and brothers-in-law all seemed quite in favour of our marriage.

I thought that my relationship to my husband's family was very good until he died. At that point, I found otherwise. Once my husband was gone, I reverted to my state of "foreigner" and they were quite upset that I didn't leave Egypt after his death. Part of this has to do with inheritance laws in Egypt and I would have to emphasize the importance of understanding the laws that could affect any marriage between Egyptians and foreigners. For example, an Egyptian woman who marries a non-Egyptian may not pass on her citizenship to her children, although this may change sometime in the future. If a non-Muslim marries a Muslim, it is extremely important for the family to sort out the religious basis of the family in order to deal with inheritance in the case of death. Bad relations are not always the case after the death of the husband, but they are unfortunately very common.

My best advice is to sit with your prospective partner and examine carefully the legal aspects of the marriage. Egyptian marriages have wedding contracts in which the rights of the partners are spelled out. Find out about these contracts. Discuss the issues of inheritance and safeguarding the security of the wife. Many men don't like to think about these things and are quite reluctant. But they are very important.

And then, may you live happily ever after....