Gaza Dating Site Matches Widows to Men Seeking 2nd (or 3rd) Wife
He was looking for a woman with particular attributes, hopefully a widow of a man killed in the struggle against Israel, without children, between 25 and 30, from southern Gaza. Her requirement was no less important: She was looking for a married man.
.. She is beautiful and a widow of a martyr at the same time,” Mr. Abu Mustafa said, using the word preferred by Palestinians for a killed fighter, often a terrorist to Israelis. She is the second of his two wives.
“When I get wealthy, I will marry the third wife.”
.. Some 1,400 men have been killed in the three wars with Israel since 2008, leaving many widows who would like to remarry. Tradition, however, can make it difficult for them to wed single men.
.. said he did wish to give “dignity” to a widow.
.. more than half the marriage requests involved men seeking a second or third wife (though not yet a fourth).
.. “In most cases the husband’s family pressures the woman to marry the brother in law to control her life and seize any financial aid she receives.”
.. if the widow’s husband is affiliated with a political party, it might intervene and pressure the woman to marry a man from the same group, and she will often agree because she is struggling financially and the group will pay her a salary.
.. “This matchmaking service is positive because it encourages these women to choose the potential husband without fear and pressure in this religious and patriarchal society,” Ms. Owda said.
.. Lina Zein, 25, a single woman from Gaza City, explaining that Wesal felt too transactional in its approach to arranging weddings. “It limits my ambitions in marriage to someone’s income.” .
.. “Polygamy has hit high rates in Gaza over the few past years, seemingly due to an increase in people’s religious inclination, especially after Hamas took power in 2007,”
.. Hamas itself has been trying to encourage marriage by paying the equivalent of $1,500 to any male who memorizes the Quran
.. “We also fight old traditions that say divorced women should not get married.”
.. while Mr. Sheikha is in favor of more options for women in the selection of a spouse, he is not a strong supporter of the choice to remain single. In addition to helping widows and the divorced find husbands, he said he hoped the site would also address “an increase in the number of spinsters in their 20s and 30s. The Arabic proverb says living in the shadow of a man is better than living in the shadow of a wall, which means that having a husband is better than staying unmarried.”