Facebook Marriage in Iraq

In Karbala, Iraq, and certainly lots of other places in the region, young people are using Facebook to get to know potential spouses without violating norms against gender mingling:

It is a tale that is becoming far more common in Iraq. After only two months of knowing one another on the social networking website Facebook, Karbala merchant Haider al-Saadi married one of his online friends.

Student Afra Hussein tells a similar tale. “I received a friendship request from one of my fellow students at university,” she says. “The relationship developed online and now we are married. Basically,” Hussein says, “Facebook provides young Iraqi people with a venue where they don’t need to be embarrassed or ashamed – they can declare their feelings more easily online.”

However not all Facebook friendships end up happily ever after. Another Karbala university student, Hassan Juma, says he accidentally clicked the wrong button on Facebook and sent a friendship request to a female student. Two days later he was beaten up by the student’s brothers who thought that he and the girl in question were conducting an illicit relationship.