Runaway Bride - Global Edition

Nary a stir around globe

Frida Ghitis

Philadelphia Inquirer 5/05/05
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2005/05/05/
news/editorial/11565615.htm

On Saturday morning, when the new pop culture brand "runaway bride" blasted onto the American stage, the New York Times carried a front-page story about wedding pressures felt by women thousands of miles away from Duluth, Ga.

It turns out Jennifer Wilbanks' wedding jitters would have taken her in quite a different direction had she and her groom-to-be lived in Kyrgyzstan. A common way of catching a wife in that Central Asian nation consists of, literally, catching her: setting up a trap and hunting her like an animal in the wild. More than a third of women there go into marriage against their will, via abduction. The hopelessly romantic Kyrgyz men have a good reason for pursuing their soul mates this way. The men "say they snatch the women because it is easier than courtship," the article explains, "and cheaper than paying the standard 'bride price,' which can be as much as $800 plus a cow."

I wanted to see how the runaway bride story was being reported in Kyrgyzstan. Alas, the story does not appear to have captured the Kyrgyz imagination.

With every news outlet in America offering incessant analysis of the legal and psychological ramifications of the busted nuptials in Duluth, it seemed a sure bet the story would make waves around the world. So, I set out to find how the story of love jitters played in other corners of the world.

One country where what goes on in America usually makes news is Kuwait, next door to Iraq. Kuwaitis, however, do not appear to have developed a runaway bride obsession. Maybe that's because while Katie Couric was interviewing just about every citizen of Duluth, the women of Kuwait were anxiously holding their breath. On Monday, the Kuwaiti parliament - all men - held a vote to decide if they would allow women to vote for the first time ever in that country. For years, brave and determined Kuwaiti women have struggled relentlessly to gain the right to vote. They did not win this time, either.

In Saudi Arabia, the bride story also failed to make a splash. No sign of it in the Saudi Arab News. There, coverage focused on a number of other matters. Saudi voters (new adjective-noun pair!) recently went to the polls for the first time in history, to elect half the members of weak city councils; the king and his men appoint the other half. Women, unsurprisingly, were not granted permission to vote by the men. I doubt any Saudi woman would survive running away from her groom. In fact, running away, Jennifer Wilbanks style, is all but impossible. You would never see a woman jogging (forget the shorts - black cover from head to toe is the only public clothing for Saudi women) or riding a bus alone, or flying without a male relative or without official permission from a husband or son or father.

The runaway bride debate will not die soon in America. The question of whether the bride deserves punishment or compassion remains a wrenching, brow-furrowing issue for television pundits. Because the matter weighs so heavily on the nation, I would like to make my own suggestion: Let's put the Duluth wedding on hold for a few months while Jennifer volunteers to work with women in Kyrgyzstan or Kuwait. She'll gain a whole new perspective on what it means to experience pressure as a woman.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs