Ok, I’ve gotten off the Mr. Darcy theme intended and I apologize but I just thoroughly enjoy when discussion keeps me thinking and Zina’s use of the word “choose” sure kept me goin’.

Yours truly,
A devoted Austenite, Janeite, whatever-ite, I love all things Jane…just ask Di

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “it still usually worked best for men to do the courting” but my courtship theory is that (in many ‘traditional’ situations) women influence men to ask them out by signaling that they will say ‘yes’ if asked. Otherwise, most men are too chicken.

The basis of my courtship theory is an undergraduate work experience where I transcribed taped interviews with students about their dating lives. Then afterwards I read a graduate paper (based on data from those interviews) written specifically about the topic of female courtship strategies. It was a very interesting paper.

According to the study that was done - it’s simply amazing what a simple line such as “we should do something sometime” can do for a woman’s dating life. The funny thing was that some of the graduates (women) who helped write the paper (and who initially thought a line like that was completely lame) actually tried out what they learned and found that the number of dates they went on increased tremendously. I think the number I heard was a 25%-50% increase or even more. Women who had only occasional dates suddenly found they were going on more than one date a week.

In any case - based on that experience and what I learned from it - even if men are doing the actual asking - the women are not playing a passive role.

Gwenevere, in my own pre-married dating life, I eventually came to the conclusion that even in our era it still usually worked best for men to do the courting. (I also remember hearing the statistic (tho’ I have no source for it) that it’s still true in our culture (meaning modern U.S. culture) that for the most part it’s men who initiate relationships and women who end them.) I could write a long explication of my theory, but it’s a very wriggly can of worms, and I don’t want to hijack this thread (and moreover I need to go clean my house . . . while my husband’s off providing for my family . . . yeah I guess I do have things in common with the Saudi women. But I do feel like there’s a difference in my having been able to *choose* a traditional role. But that’s again a whole ‘nother long topic.)

I wouldn’t argue too hard with you. I probably could have worded things a little differently or better. The only point I would argue is that when two human beings (of any background) sit down and talk things through - once they get past issues such as differences in politics/religion/culture/language/etc. (differences that can be quite significant, of course) - they would probably find that their most basic human needs are really the same.

Anyway what I’m trying do here is debate your idea that “Saudis and Westerners aren’t so different after all”. We are different, but its not so much the cultural differences as it is perhaps, time differences (not to be confused with time zone difference). When given time to think and act, learn, grow can’t we all come to know that the world is indeed round?

just a thought