No Man’s Woman: What It Means to Be Unmarried in an Arab World
By Hagar Othman
To be a woman in Arab society is a challenge, but to be an unmarried woman who chooses to make decisions completely different from those taught by parents, relatives, neighbors, and friends is a choice forged through struggle.
To be the “ideal woman” in their eyes means only one thing: to be a wife and mother. Anything beyond that is seen as unnecessary luxury. Even if your choice is truly not to marry, your work, your professional success, or your independence will never be welcomed or celebrated.
It’s “your personal life”, and you are “a mature, free, adult woman”, yet none of that matters to the patriarchal system. A clash is inevitable, your choices and your freedom are considered fair game for everyone to comment on or control.
“Divorced is better than single.” As if marriage, even a failed one, grants a woman social recognition simply for having gone through “the proper path.”
At every social gathering, the same phrases float lightly off people’s tongues:
“Hopefully next time it’s your turn,” or “When will we celebrate you?”
They sound ordinary, full of love and good wishes, but for many women, they carry a different undertone, a gentle reminder that something is still missing, that a woman’s completeness isn’t achieved until there’s a ring on her finger.
Women of different ages and experiences told Sharika Wa Laken how these seemingly harmless phrases turned from social niceties into constant psychological stings, placing them in conflict with society and pushing them to question their own worth and their place in a narrative that measures a woman’s life not by her achievements, but by how close she is to marriage.
Some of them speak of an invisible isolation, beginning at family gatherings and extending to workplaces.
Others describe the pitying or curious looks that follow them wherever they go, as if being unmarried requires an explanation—or sympathy.
Between the biological clock that reminds them of their bodies and the psychological clock that cries out for calm and freedom of choice, some women find themselves in an unfair race, not only against time, but against merciless social expectations.
An Expired Body!
Nahed, 38, an architect, recounts how her professional success and financial independence did not spare her from her father’s unfair and stereotypical view of her as just a girl.
He constantly reminds her that time is not on her side; that she is merely a body with an expiration date for childbearing, and once that date passes, no man will want to marry her.
She says: “My family and society see me as nothing more than a commodity, like a jar of jam, with two dates: production and expiration. If I don’t get married soon, I’ll ‘spoil’ with time, and no one will come near me. My father scolds me every single day for turning down the suitors who propose, because I find them unsuitable. I have the right to choose my life partner.”
She continues: “He tells me, ‘Who would want you now that you’re older? What would he do with you? How could you even have children?”
The Right to Housing Denied to Single Women
Rahma, 31, a researcher, struggles as millions of women do across Arab societies, hostile to women’s independence. These are societies that do not recognize a woman’s right to live alone before marriage, because they see women as the property of their families, especially fathers or brothers, and later, of husbands. There is no room, then, for a girl to even think about living independently; she must fight a hard battle just to claim four walls where she can live with privacy and safety.
“To be an unmarried woman in an Arab society means that every life choice I make is put on social trial, as if I’m stepping outside the script written for women,” says Rahma.
She continues: “When I tried to find an apartment to live in alone as a divorced or unmarried woman, most landlords refused outright, just because there was no man in the picture. In the end, I couldn’t rent a place until my father signed the contract with me, as if the presence of a man was a prerequisite for me to access my basic right to housing.”
Banned from Travel… Banned from Life
Women’s freedom cannot be separated from their social and economic realities. A woman’s class position largely determines the extent of her choices, and the limits of her silence or rebellion.
A woman who has financial independence or a good education can negotiate with society over her personal choices and refuse the roles imposed upon her, without fearing the consequences of loss or need.
By contrast, women from poorer classes are often pushed to conform to traditional norms in order to preserve what is called “respectability” or economic security, not necessarily out of conviction.
Thus, poverty becomes not only a material condition but also a tool of social control, reinforcing women’s submission and limiting their ability to redefine themselves or the paths of their lives.
In this sense, gender justice becomes inseparable from economic justice, one cannot exist without the other.
Faten, 41, a successful journalist living in a working-class neighborhood, describes how her surroundings, steeped in patriarchal and traditional values, view women through a rigid, stereotypical lens.
She says: “What does it mean for a woman not to be married in a conservative society, and even worse, living in a working-class area? If she’s still unmarried, the first thing people do is put her under a microscope, they have to find a flaw. It’s impossible, they think, that she reached this age without marriage unless something’s wrong with her.”
She continues: “They say she’s single because men run away from her. Why? There must be something off, either in her looks, her behavior, or her personality, which must be unbearable. Or maybe she’s too flirty, laughing in the streets! Or maybe she’s too strict, walking like a soldier! One of our neighbors actually told my mother, ‘Your daughter walks like a soldier, who would want to marry her? Of course the men run away!”
Faten explains how class dictates women’s freedom, their right to work, to travel, and to live differently. Her own life is constantly intruded upon by the people in her neighborhood, simply because she stands out, because she is different, independent, and travels abroad for work.
She says: “I suffer from intense scrutiny, my clothes, my looks, when I go out, when I come home, people ask about everything. It’s as if, just because I’m unmarried and have no man in my life, I’m somehow public property, open for everyone to talk about my private life without limits. One neighbor even told my mother, ‘Why does she work? Can’t you afford to feed her? And how can you let an unmarried girl travel alone?’”
Divorced Is Better Than Single!
In a striking paradox, patriarchal society often shows more tolerance toward the label “divorced” than “spinster.”
While an unmarried woman is described as someone who “hasn’t been chosen yet,” a divorced woman is, implicitly, granted the legitimacy of experience. As if marriage, even when it fails, gives a woman social validation for having walked the “right path.”
This contradiction drives many women to marry not out of conviction, but out of fear, to escape the stigma of being labeled an “old maiden.” Thus, marriage sometimes shifts from being a personal choice to a social shield that protects women from judgment and earns them a more acceptable title in others’ eyes, even if the cost is their freedom and peace of mind.
But Nihal, 32, a neurosurgeon, refused to surrender to these contradictions or to her family’s pressure, especially their claim that they would rather accept her divorce than her remaining single and “on no man’s name,” as they put it in the usual patriarchal language.
She says: “Even if you’re a successful, accomplished doctor, financially independent, with a respected academic position, none of that matters at family gatherings, weddings, or in neighbors’ questions. The phrases ‘When will it be your turn?’ or ‘We can’t wait to celebrate you!’ haunt you everywhere, like a curse. It’s as if society won’t give you a full mark unless you’re tied to a man! Why must I belong to someone? Why can’t I belong to myself?”
Nihal adds: “My aunt tells me, ‘Even if you went to the moon, a woman has no real worth unless she’s married.’ She even advised me to marry, even if I end up divorced later, because, in her words, being divorced is better than being single.”
As If You’re Incomplete!
“I hate the looks of pity and sympathy I see in people’s eyes just because I’m not married! They see any woman who’s ‘late’ to marry as somehow lacking something, though I’m doing other things that make me happy without marriage. Even the seamstress bit her lip when she learned my age and started praying, ‘May God grant you a husband,’ as if I’m in a race against time to reach the marriage station!” says Asmaa, 31.
She continues: “At my cousin’s wedding, my uncle told me, ‘I want to dance for you before I die, why do you keep rejecting the men who propose to you?’ I told him, ‘Because they’re not suitable.’ He surprised me by saying, ‘But I think they are suitable for you!’”, she laughs.
Although the stories documented by Sharika Wa Laken reveal the pain and harshness women face in patriarchal societies, they also show resilience and defiance. These women confront judgment with courage; they are fighters who redefine themselves beyond the framework of marriage, believing that their social status does not measure their worth, but by their abilities and the freedom of their choices.
