More Egyptians divorcing, not getting married at all

"Marriage is like a besieged citadel," a columnist wrote recently in Al-Ahram, "those outside want to enter it, while those inside are looking for a way out."

According to a recently released study, more and more Egyptians appear to be looking for that way out. The study, the subject of an article on the National's Web site today, shows that 84,430 Egyptian couples divorced in 2008, an 8.4 percent increase from the year before. Additionally, there are now 13 million Egyptians aged 30 or older who have never been married at all, according to the study, released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.

For a conservative, family-oriented society such as Egypt's, that 13 million number is surprising - it represents a fifth of the entire population over 15. If you slice off 15- to 29-year-olds and consider that a large majority of Egyptian seniors (65 and up) have probably been married at some point, you're talking about a huge swath of young and middle-aged Egyptians who've never been hitched - probably more than a third of citizens ages 30 to 65. That rate would rival or exceed the corresponding percentage of never-married Americans.

From the article:

Adel Madani, a marriage counsellor, recently told the Egyptian state TV programme, Saidaty, meaning My Lady, that most marital problems revolve around jealousy, extramarital affairs -- mainly from husbands, physical and verbal abuse against wives, fights over financial issues and relations with the in-laws.

That sounds pretty normal to me. And by normal, I suppose what I mean is American. Which begs the question: Is Egypt becoming more liberal, more Westernized in its cultural conception of marriage? The growing number of divorces, not to mention the presence of more sex and marriage counselors, would suggest that the answer is yes.

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