Social Comment by Madame Zucco - Who Stole Ali's Harem?

Well your harem wasn't stolen, Mr. Ali Ben Boo Boo. It only packed up it's tent and moved to a different country.

Women's liberation has arrived in Saudi Arabia. Sort of.

Several years ago, the Saudi government gave permission for  women Sauds to enroll in the nation's universities. < Oh my, wasn't that generous of them. > Today the feminine gender makes up 60% of Saudi college students. But there's one problem with this. The Saudi government forbids these women from working. So if they want to do anything with their education, these female college grads have to move to another country.

Many of them do just that.

But this is only a minor inconvenience for Mr. Ali. If he has trouble finding a wife, as many Saudi men do, he just goes on a marriage tour. Usually, these marriage tours are just shopping expeditions to buy, literally buy, a wife. < I mean what girl in her right mind would want to marry most of these guys for free. > As expected, the best "markets" for this are usually the world's  poorer countries, like Indonesia, the Philippines, etc.. Many of these girls are below the age of consent, sometimes 15, even 12, years old, and again, quite literally, are even sold by their biological parents. < Gee, it's a nice world out there,isn't it. FRICK >

Unfortunately, most of these "marriages" don't have a happy Arabian fairy tale ending. The girls are only married for one reason. Sex. < No surprise there. > When the husband tires of them, they are abandoned to fend for themselves. The divorce rate in Saudi Arabia is one of the highest in the Middle East, which actually is quite an accomplishment considering how easy it is to divorce in that region with a Suki  betrothal. Domestic violence is epidemic.

Is it any wonder why Saudi women are fleeing from Saudi men?

The domestic / marital situation is only the tip of a sand dune of internal probs for the Saudi government. Crime has become rampant, even with severe penalties. Last year, according to the European press, there was an attempted coup by the Palace Guard. To yours truly, Madame Zucco, I've been told there are no cinema theaters in the country. If you want to see a film, you have to literally go to the island of Bahrain. Temperatures are usually 105 degrees  < Take your pick, either Celsius or Fahrenheit, it's miserable. > in the shade on a sunny day. And it's always sunny.

So why would the men even want to stay in Saudi Arabia? God only knows

"Anything you can do, I can do better. Anything you can do, I can do too. YES I CAN. YES I CAN. YES I CAN." - Betty Hutton in Annie Get Your Gun