Miss Fairfax lives!

[qatarperegrine]

I'm not sure which bemuses me more -- that this situation occurred, or that it was worthy of a newspaper article!

And why, exactly, did M Jassim brave stiff opposition from his wife, anyway?

Doesn't it all sound like the makings of a Jane Austen novel?

Comments

[kit-ping.livejournal.com]

Okay. That's just... weird. :)

She only gets to see her husband once a week after going back to work? Am I reading that right?

[qatar.livejournal.com]

That's how I read it too.

I'm starting to get the impression that Qatari women and men don't see a lot of one another. Certainly unmarried men and women don't associate with one another, but even after marriage I think they live in separate worlds.

I was struck by this when I was trying to find a picture for my FAQ of a woman in an abaya and a man in a thobe. Despite a number of Google image searches (as well as perusing my Qatar books), I was able to find only one image of a traditionally dressed Qatari man and woman together:


There are, however, a million pictures out there of groups of women together and groups of men together, e.g.


Still. Even Mr. Woodhouse let Emma's governess go live with Mr. Weston when they got married. Perhaps this is even beyond a Jane Austen novel!

Update

[qatar.livejournal.com]

So, having lived here for almost a full week now, I have two updates to the above post.

First, I don't think that the couple in the top picture are even Qatari, because while the man is wearing a thobe his head covering is wrong.

Second, I do see lots of male-female couples around, especially in the grocery store. The other day I even saw two of them hold hands, which was something I haven't seen at all in the last week.

Also, distant photos don't do justice to the abayas women wear here. Most of them are very finely embroidered, appliqued or sequined and are very beautiful pieces of clothing. (The thobes really are just like button-down shirts that keep on going, though.)