Abu Dhabi: Sixty-three per cent of UAE national men favour traditional marriages, while 71 per cent of UAE national women prefer to choose their husbands themselves, according to a recent study conducted by university students on the issue of marriage.
Click here to see the 'Survey Results' (pdf)
The study was conducted by Salwa Fouad, Khowla Ahmad and Lamia Ahmad, communication and media sciences students at Zayed University, as part of their graduation project, reported Notes which is published today.
Fouad said: "This study looks at marriage patterns in the UAE and highlights its important issues."
The students' research paper, titled Zehba - an Emirati term for wedding preparations - looked at UAE nationals' views on reasons for getting married, choice of spouse, planning of marriages, the role of luck in a marriage, wedding parties, dowry and education.
Students surveyed 200 Emiratis and visited the Abu Dhabi Courts to gather statistics and literature.
The study showed that about 70 per cent of UAE nationals get married for religious reasons. It also indicated that 63 per cent of Emirati women refuse to marry a man with a poorer education than them.
However, 74 per cent of UAE national men said that they would marry women of higher education standards. It also showed that "being religious" was the number one quality men and women look for in a spouse.
Eighty per cent of women and 76 per cent of men agreed that dowry is not an indication of the bride's position and value. This is particularly relevant considering the expensive wedding parties and dowries that are part of UAE national weddings.
The students illustrated their "shocking" results, as they described them, with caricatures by Fatima Al Sunali, a ZU graduate and cartoonist.
"The girls talked to me saying they wanted a new way to show the results of the poll. I got the ideas from the results and started drawing. The poll was very serious and the results were shocking. We tried to bring out the results in an interesting way," she said.
