Swiss writer Madame Germaine De Staël (1766-1817) once said that love is a mere episode in a man's life, but it is a woman's whole history. Perhaps she merely meant to say that women are romantic by nature. Maybe she meant that women are more given to emotions that can warp their view of life. She, however, was also the one who said that men make mistakes because they are selfish, while women do so because they are weak. Chances are, she meant to caution fellow women about the perils of the illusion of love. Half a world away and almost three centuries later in Saudi Arabia, 21-year-old Fadilah's story is anything but a screenplay for a second-rate movie. It is a real-life cautionary tale about the consequences of falling for mere words. The story she told to the Arabic daily Al-Riyadh is a harrowing account of romance, betrayal, exploitation and regret. Contrary to the meaning of her name – the adjective in Arabic means “virtuous” – the disillusioned Fadilah had gotten embroiled in an affair with a man who lured her into the throes of his lewd desires after he made her believe he was in love with her. The mere mention of that fateful night, when he took away her most precious possession, makes her cringe. Repeated sessions with her psychiatrist did little to ease her spasms. “My boyfriend deceived me in the name of love,” she first said in a resigned, matter-of-factly tone. “It was terrible,” she continued, now hardly able to control the mist that gathered in her eyes. “He blackmailed me in a hideous way.” Her so-called boyfriend had threatened to send photos of her she had given him to her family.You're not alone Fadilah went on to say that what happened to her could easily happen to many other girls who have no idea how the mind of a delinquent young man works. “At the beginning, the man might come across as one of impeccable ethics,” she warned. “He would lead you to believe he has no sexual desires of you, when in fact that's exactly what he wants, and looks for any opportunity to set you up and enthrall you.” Now that the unthinkable has already happened, it would be foolish to think that it stopped there. “Once the man gets what he wants, he is never satisfied,” said Fadilah. “He starts blackmailing the girl with something to threaten her with, such as photos, either ones she had given him as a gift, or ones that he took of her unbeknownst to her, or by catching her unawares on video.” It was only downhill from there. Nothing, not even attempting to mend things with an offer to make things legitimate, could repair the damage. She said that men's threats are sometimes too much for the victim to bear. The harder the emotional pressure, the more their demands. “I asked him to marry me, but he refused,” she reflected. “I had no other choice but to give in to his demands. It is true that giving in complicates matters further, but once a girl is exposed, everything is blown wide-open. Customs and traditions compel a girl like me to keep all of this under wraps.” It takes another woman to understand the kind of pressure Fadilah is talking about. Fatima Jaafar, 25, said Fadilah was right to give in to her abuser's pressure, because no matter how bad it is, it can't be worse than the alternative: scandal. “Undoubtedly,” said Fatima, “the intense pressure on a woman in Fadilah's situation can render her helpless.”Character flaw Zeinab Mohammad, 27, on the other hand, thinks differently. She says it all boils down to the woman's character. “All of a woman's problems begin with a weak character,” she said. “A girl with a strong character would not give in to a man's lewd desires in the first place.” Zeinab added that most Saudi women are brought up in the kind of gender-conscious, condescending culture that relegates them to second place after men. “That's the kind of culture that undermines, diminishes and eventually destroys a woman's character,” she said. “There are male family members who actually believe that the women in the family are a disgrace, for no other reason than their simply being women.” Zeinab says some of her girlfriends had had relationships with more than one man at the same time. “These kind of relationships can no longer be justified as love,” she said, “and neither of them is serious about it culminating in marriage.” She said that by nature, most women want to meet men with the intent of eventually getting married. “Many girls believe that pre-marital dating minimizes the odds of divorce, which is not entirely true,” she said. “Besides, a man will never marry a woman he had been dating, because to him, she was only a means to an end, not the end itself.” Zeinab says that most women are unable to get on with their lives normally after such abusive relationships. On the contrary, the same men who exploited them move on to marry someone else and wipe the slate clean, as if nothing had happened. Maybe Madame De Staël was on to something after all.The only way out “This kills a woman from inside,” said Zeinab, but warned the victims against considering suicide as a last resort. “I would like to caution deceived girls against committing suicide,” she said. “If I hadn't been there for my friend with advice and support, she might have killed herself after someone had told her he loved her, only to have his way with her for a while and then dump her for someone else who became his future wife.” She goes on to say that even though most women are sincere about their relationships with men and want it to end in marriage, “romantic escapades” can turn out to be something quite different from what they had hoped. Zeinab's friend, who almost took her own life when things hit rock bottom, is one example. Her friend declined to tell her story, but let Zeinab brief the readers on the gist of it. Once, she told her mother she was going out with Zeinab. “In fact she wasn't going out with me,” she said. “Her boyfriend was waiting for her in his car just around the corner.”Different stories, same outcome Although the details of the stories of Fadilah and Zeinab's friend are vastly different, the one thing they have in common is the social and familial pressure they had to endure. Even the tiniest blemish in a woman's honor is an unforgivable crime. Once the secret is out, the consequence is a foregone conclusion: the stigmatized woman will never find another man who would marry her knowing her history. “The problem is that society only punishes women for the deeds of men, even if they didn't do anything wrong,” said Zeinab. “Personally, I have never heard of any man who would marry a rape victim.”Special governance Alia Farid, a Saudi human rights activist, said that few girls ever dare to tell her of the relationships in which they got entangled, adding that when the few that do eventually tell her about their sexual encounters, it's often too late to do anything about it. “By the time they come forward, any evidence that could've incriminated the offending men would have disappeared forever,” she said. Farid called for total rethink of the legal proceedings pertaining to so-called honor cases. She says they should be completely reformed in a way that guarantees that the offenders are brought to justice with the help of scientific evidence, and the possible offenders are deterred. She added that the highest authorities in the Kingdom are pursuing the issue. Farid said that offences involving moral turpitude are the jurisdiction of a special committee at the Emirship of the Eastern Province and are processed swiftly and intently, despite some reservations. Farid advised female victims to report cases of abuse to the police or to human rights organizations so as to put an end to the blackmail men subject them to. “Specialists can determine whether a man had actually had sex with a woman, or whether she is making it up,” she said. “Judicial proceedings should serve the woman justice based on medical evidence.” Appealing directly to women, she said: “You must tell someone you can trust about your plight, so they can make a move on your behalf to resolve the problem, either settling it or taking it to Shariah court.” __
