In the dictionary ‘spinster' is defined as an unmarried woman who probably isn't going to get married. It's not a nice thing to call a young woman. Although they've done nothing wrong, Egypt's unmarried women suffer from gossiping in secret. Spinsters are seen to be ‘suspect'. "We all know how offensive it is to be described as a spinster," says Ghada Abdel-A'al, a 32-year-old pharmacist. "Yet people still use the term." Ghada has written a book called I Want to Get Married. Using colloquial Arabic, she tells the story of a young woman searching for a suitable husband, till she reaches the age of 30. The book doesn't portray Ghada as a spinster, but simply as a girl searching for the right partner. She turns down every offer, because her suitors aren't suitable. It's a comic but impressive book. In Egypt, an estimated 9 million (or 30 per cent of) young men and women are bachelors or spinsters, according to official statistics. In her book, Ghada says that, in the past, it was always the man who made the effort to find the right girl, but now it seems the girl takes the first and sometimes the second step. The awful comments about unmarried old women and the disdainful looks they get put terrible pressure on a young girl to marry before it's too late. "I hope to get married no later than the age of 25," says Nora Sobhi Gaber, 20. "Not for marriage itself, but so that people won't call me a spinster." Economic problems …quot; according to specialists …quot; are mainly to blame for a lot of young men in Egypt not getting married these days. Moreover, the increasing rate of divorce makes them afraid of emotional failure too, they add. "I can hardly afford to feed myself, let alone a family," says Ahmed Ali Moussa, a 24-year-old Egyptian man. "My circumstances would pave the way for failure if I got married." Because of the pressure on the girl, she often finds herself forced to get married as early as possible. She no longer enjoys her right to choose her partner. She chooses the best from a bad bunch of offers in order to escape from the spectre of spinsterhood, say specialists. "I'd rather marry an unsuitable person than be left on the shelf," Sally Saeed Ibrahim, 23, says. "Even getting divorced is better than being a spinster." Despite the social pressure, some girls insist on the right to choose their partners. "I have the right to choose the right man, even if I become an old woman in the waiting," argues Nada Osama, 25, although it sounds like she's exaggerating. "It is my right to choose the person with whom I'll spend the rest of my life." Nada agrees that divorce is a bad experience, but a better fate than spinsterhood. To deal with the problem, marriage bureaux have been springing up all over the place in this nation of 80 million people. Young men and women go to these bureaux and fill in a form about themselves. The details get fed into a company and the staff at the offices try and find a suitable match for the applicants. Abeer Shaheen, 36, the manager of one of these marriage bureaux, told the Egyptian Mail that she got many applications from girls aged 20, explaining that their mothers' fears that their daughters would be labelled as spinsters push them to apply so young. But some young women are very much against such bureaux. "I'm very much against emotions being replaced by computers," says Maria Fouad Fathi, 27. "If a computer ‘marries' a girl, she will continue to be a spinster in her own home." It is not a new problem in Egypt, as it started in the 19th century. But it's becoming more and more prevalent as the population keeps on increasing. "Arabic societies must stop insisting on an expiry date for the girl to get married by," says Ghada, the pharmacist-cum-writer. "The number of unmarried ladies over 30 is increasing. People should not look on them as spinsters, but as successful women."
