Why are more Saudi women choosing to stay single?

Question

The headline:

Survey finds more women are choosing to stay single in Saudi Arabia

The link:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi_arabia/10237173.html

The snip:

The number of spinsters in Saudi Arabia has reached 180,413, according to a demographic survey conducted in 2007.

The survey classified spinsters as women who had reached the age of 30 years or above without getting married.

It revealed the rate of spinsterhood amounted to 2.6 per cent last year out of the total number of women in Saudi Arabia. This means that one out of every 16 women in Saudi Arabia is classified as a spinster.

The study also revealed that the rate of divorced women in Saudi Arabia amounted to 2.4 per cent in 2007.

Answer 1

i disagree with MIntee that the ratio of women over men is 4:1 globally. i think the ratio is 55% women and 45% men. Though i dont know the actual reason but i guess, there could be several factors for women to stay single, such as :

(1) as saudi girls are all covered up, may be men dont approach them easily.

(2) the treatment a girl receives after divorce is also important for a women to decide if she really wants to get married.

(3) when a girl can support herself and is not dependent on anyone, then she may chose not to get married, as she may not want to compromise her freedom.

(4) lastly, men usually get married before 30 and mostly between 25-28 and since usually the girls are younger than men, the average age for a girl to get married is between 20-25. A 30year old girl would be married to a guy of atleast 34 years, which one rarely finds.

Overall, i think girls who have not married at the age of 30 are not by choice but may be because of luck.

Answer 2

.....there are so many factors to consider and it does not happen to Saudi Arabia alone.....its much worse to other countries.....Here are the reasons that comes to mind....

1. women prioritize their career over marriage

2. career women doesn't like to marry men who have lower salary or work position than them

3. women is happy to be single, without too much pressure and responsibilities

4. women were choosy for a husband thats why until in their 30's they're still single

5. No men choose them to marry  

Answer 3

as we all know.. theres a ratio of 4 to 1 women over men in the world as a whole..

so throw in the mix a bunch of pervs, dweebs, men who prefer other men, and married well your choice of available men narrows somewhat..

Also Saudi women (or muslim women in general) arent going for the

"allowed up to 4 wives" bit.. so there again.. no husband prospects out there.. the good ones are already taken..

and since modernization of Saudi in the past 50 years.. Women are having careers, moving about in the world, getting educated and generally dont need the support of men...

I have many girlfriends here that are 30ish in age and some even now own their own homes, have their careers, like doctors, business women etc  and are self sufficiant.. they dont need men.. its just the way of the modern era I assume..  

Answer 4

it is part of a global trend, together with higher divorce rate and more independent women.

in my opinions, there can be few reasons:

- "girls need men as fish needs bikes" slogan. more independent women, makes them less demanding for marriage for financial security only. So, for some, this slogan beats the old egyptian famous slogan "shadow of a man, better than shadow of a wall".

Actually, recently, I seen a little cartoon about it, where a lady saying "shadow of a job, bettern than a shadow of a wall"

- Being independent financially, resulted in higher divorce rate. So, a lady not happy in marriage might select divorce, and being independent, which is quiet very common today.

This indirectly, resulted in a lot of echos. Men are bastered, men are trashy ....etc. So, unmarried and financially independent lady, will be very catious to get married.

- The next reason, is in reality, it is totally the opposite of what many might think, that closed society results in a less chance to get married.

It is the other way around. The new generations are living in a very liberal way, that made access to the opposite s*x is very easy. So, in the past, marriage was the normal end of a love story.

Today, there are  alot of other lifestyles. The liberal one. A lot of networking between girls and boys, in the name of friendship. Most people end up with much more than friendship.

Having very liberal friends, groups, and society, made marriage kind of a borin proposal for many people. Many girls enjoy the company of a man without the obligation of marriage. And this lifestyle is A LOT.

- I don't agree with the title of the article, as many girls still want to get married, but don't find the right match. So, it is not their choice. The thing is cost of marriage is extremely high, which made guys think many times before doing this bold step.

So, even though we have almost an equal split of males and females, but those males who are ready for marriage are much much less.

Then, you get those males who are ready for marriage but not attractive. So, a girl might feel the chances are less. Which makes them kinda using the American girls slogan "men are like parking spots, all the good ones are always taken"

- Appearance? I believe in internal beauty, but no one can deny that physical appearance is a factor. However, many men are driven mainly by physical appearance. (common, can you find a free blond anywhere in the world? unless its her real own will?)

Saudi girls are so pretty. However, overweight is a lot here, and obesity rate is high. I don't have numbers, but it is on the very high end, this why we have high rate of diabetes.

While overweight makes a person less attractive, but no one can deny that it is much much a problem for females than a male. George in Jerry Sienfield is overweight but not obese. He always end up with good dates before breaking up with them, but you can hardly see a girl with his chubby body in any movie, gets a good date or husband.

Finally, i just want to say, that it is a very common belief that female to male ratio is extremely high in Saudi, but all numbers dont say so. We are just normal in this ratio.

Answer 5

I think the prospect of becoming the property of a Saudi man, who can have up to 4 wives at once, would not be appealing to any Saudi women. Plus, there is the whole wife-beating culture that comes with treating women like property. I also have to wonder how prevalent homosexuality is in Saudi Arabia, since women are covered up so much and so heavily restricted from interacting with men.

Answer 6

bad news for me? :(

Answer 7

Because the saudi men veiw women as vessles not people

Answer 8

Its easy... do you know how much it costs to get married here in Saudi???

for a man to come up with that kind of money... it would take a while, especially with employement rate... therefore men get married in their late 20s early 30s...

and its typical for men to want a younger female...  so lets say a 30 year old would be looking for a female thats 25 max...

A gap is created.... girls that are of the same age of the men getting married are ignored....

thats my main theory...

another one would be that females are more educated in Saudi then males.... self educated.

So, they try to look for someone with the same education level and thinking instead of the primitave ways...

Basically, its hard to get married in saudi if you dont have the $$$ and the reputation.

Answer 9

Saudi men?

Answer 10

It's not that they are choosing to stay single.  Rather it is because Saudi men have to pay dowries of up to $50,000 USD and so it takes them a long time to get all that money saved up, so the men are usually in their 30s by the time they save up that huge dowry. Plus you have Muslim women wanting mixed weddings, and huge wastes of food and DJs, maids, servants, drivers, big houses, etc.  Then of course you have the Saudi man who thinks that only virgin teenagers(adults in Islam) can bear more children or are more fertile then women in their 20s+ which is completely backwards thinking as it is up to GOD on how many children a couple has.  There are also those men who WANT to get married to an older woman, but because of their families, or their first wives, who are banning polygamy(Astaghirfullah) and forbidding their husband's from taking on another wife.

Answer 11

It could be that they don't want to just settle for any guy and have high standards, as they should.  It's also hard to find a good man.

Answer 12

Let us not forget that marriage is totally in god's hand.

Answer 13

It is a global thing not just in KSA ,and it is in both sides men and women