Age differences in relationships
I've written about this previously in various places and I try to tread lightly but I really hate the western attitudes towards age differences in relationships. Some people have a lot in common and get along well in spite of a big age difference.
The West: "The age difference alone suggests he's practically a pedophile."
The Middle East: "That's not really that big of an age difference. What are they going on about?"
Americans in particular seem extremely bad about assuming that she married him for money, has no real agency and he's a pervert who just likes them young. The implication is Americans trend towards not really having deep relationships and the heteronormative legal structure here actively encourages women to marry for money and other cultures are more likely to have marriages based on real relationships.
Tom was Guamanian and over time I realized he was surrounded by younger people and they tended to defer to him, apparently based largely on a Guamanian standard of respecting your elders. I failed to be as pliable as he expected and this caused friction between us.
Not long before I dumped him for reasons rooted in "it sucks to be me," I met a man two years older than him who ended up being my next serious boyfriend. This was food for thought because my friction with Tom had me about ready to swear off on ever getting with an older man again.
That next boyfriend was Navarre.
As someone who was molested as a child and had BAGGAGE about age differences due to that, this comment was a really big deal to me and helped free me of a lot of garbage.
As a more general observation, I suspect that the "four wives" thing is rooted in it being a wartorn area historically. One man and four wives can repopulate a devastated area AND women are likely to outnumber men because men tend to die in wars much more than women.
One woman and four husbands can't produce a dramatic increase in population AND now you don't know who the father is, an issue not introduced by one man having multiple wives.
The Middle East is predominantly Muslim. It's a religion that objects to the objectification of people generally so their art tends to not include human figures.
Not wishing to objectify women is part of why women are very covered up in public. My limited experience with Middle Eastern men is that they generally treated me BETTER than American men.
Middle Eastern men: Every inch of you is sexy from the hair on your head to the tips of your toes and a PRIVATE sight not shared with the general public.
Western men: The only thing sexy about you is the parts covered on a public beach by a bikini. Tits and ass, baby! Show that shit to me! Also, I have completely unreasonable expectations that every inch of you should look FLAWLESS 24/7 and will roundly insult you repeatedly if it doesn't live up to the Photoshopped bullshit in movies, magazines and billboards!
Me: STFU and get the hell away from me you troglodyte. I have a Middle Eastern boyfriend.
The other thing about Muslim culture is they forbid alcohol. In the US, the vast majority of date rape involves alcohol.
Some article I read years ago about sexual assault on college campuses quoted someone from some college as saying that in the last four years, only ONE reported campus date rape didn't involve alcohol.
Western Women: I'm a feminist, you bitchy awful backwards former homemaker. I will do any god-damned thing I like. How dare you interfere with my rights to live like a man and do as I please by suggesting I not drink on dates or drink less! Grrr!
ALSO Western Women: "I got falling down drunk at dinner last night and went home with the guy. I know I need to drink less, but how do I tell my boyfriend I was UNFAITHFUL?" Someone else: "Honey, you weren't UNFAITHFUL. You were RAPED."
ALSO Western Women: "How DARE you suggest alcohol is involved with date rape merely because you've done two college papers on the topic! It only took me a decade to conclude that clawing him bloody to fend him off means it was attempted rape, but men are just all rapey bastards and you're an evil apologist!" Me as politely as possible: "Uh, that doesn't rebut my research. It might have been actual rape, not attempted rape, if either of you had been drinking." And I just didn't say fuck all about "So WHY did it take you a DECADE to conclude that was attempted rape? What is wrong with this picture???"
So like I don't have scientific STUDIES or whatever to back it up, but I suspect women are actually generally treated BETTER in Muslim countries where they are all covered up in public on a routine basis and he's not drinking on the date nor plying her with alcohol until she's falling down drunk so he can use her nearly comatose body like a sock to cum in, so probably Middle Eastern marriages are based more on "We have substantial stuff in common and actually talk to each other." and less on "That walking, talking sex object required by society to look glamour magazine perfect before she's allowed to leave the house makes my dick hard and I make more money than her, so she will obviously put up with my abusive shit while I dog her for any physical imperfections in the landscape of my warped mind that thinks photoshopped magazine pictures are what women are actually supposed to look like."
Me: Maybe I'm making a mistake to try to help Americans via my blogs and online comments and should just move elsewhere. OMG.
Footnote
See also my comments in this discussion under the handle DoreenMichele and this post elsewhere with the same title.