COUNTLESS studies on successful marriages have concluded that there is an important need for spouses to be frank with one another. However, being frank does not always prove to be the right solution in a marriage. In some cases, frankness, especially about one's past romantic partners, can cause jealousy and lead to fights and even divorce. Al-Riyadh daily spoke to several married women and experts on how frankness affects marriages in the Arab world. Housewife Modi A. said it is okay for men to be frank with their wives, but not the other way around. She said members of Saudi society tend to criticize women who talk with candor about their past or premarital experiences. "Sometimes a woman has to hide her past and lie about her feelings of love or hate toward her husband in order to save her marriage. Women do not always express their feelings candidly for fear of being criticized or putting their marriage at risk. This is why I do not believe that a woman should tell her husband everything that happens or happened to her all the time," she said. Sama E., a married woman, criticized how most members of society react if a woman decides to be frank with her husband and always tell the truth. She was also critical of victim blaming, something she said was common in society. "If a woman tells her husband that her driver sexually harassed her or ogles at her, or tells him that some man made a pass at her when she was on a business trip or a co-worker made an inappropriate advance, I am sure that her husband will have the driver deported, ban his wife from traveling again and ask her to resign from her job. So if she wants to be frank, she has to be ready for all the negative consequences," she said while adding women can take care of themselves and solve their own problems. According to sociologist Dr. Muhammad Al-Raee, who conducted a study on the topic of marital harmony, sometimes complete frankness can bring about negative consequences and make a bad situation worse. He said frankness that hurts someone's feelings or sows seeds of dissent should be avoided at all costs because it can compromise a marriage. He called upon men to be more accepting of their wives' candor. If a woman knows that her husband is easily irritable, jealous and abusive, she should hide things that will make him lose his temper, he said. The study indicated that most husbands who are let in on such details tend to question their wives a lot more and can often develop an unhealthy obsession with the matter. Another study conducted by Dr. Muhammad Al-Mahdi, the chair of psychological medicine department, Al-Azhar University, Egypt, said some men physically abuse their wives and threaten to reveal their secrets if they do not listen to or obey them. The study found that some men even blackmail their wives and ask them to buy their silence. Al-Mahdi concludes that the success of a marriage does not rely on a partner's frankness with the other as much as it depends heavily on how men and women treat one another and react to one another.
