Love and Sexuality among Shia Students at the
Lebanese University:
An Exploration of the Interconnectedness with
Religiosity and Nuclear Family Relations.
1
Suzanne Lugthart
Thesis within the master Middle-Eastern Studies
University of Amsterdam
Student number: 10878564
Supervisor: Dr. Robbert Woltering
Second reader: Dr. Marina De Regt (VU)
Word count: 21269
1 Joseph Eid, A Lebanese Couple on Beirut’s Ramlet al-Bayda Beach, November 8, 2016. AFP,
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 2. Abstract 3. 1. Introduction 4. 2. Theoretical framework 14. 2.1 Love 14. 2.2 Sexuality 16.2.3 Interconnections of the Nuclear Family 17. 2.4 Religion, Religiosity and Shia religion 19. 2.5 Love and Sexuality in the Muslim world 21. 2.6 Love and Sexuality in Lebanon. 23. 2.7 Politics, Social Movements and Mass Media 24.
3. Religion, Love, and Sexuality 29.
3.1 Changing Religiosities 29..
3.2 What is Love? 32.
3.3 Love and Religion 33.
3.4 Physical Contact and Religion 34.
3.5 Mut’a 38.
3.6 Interim Conclusion 39.
4. Family, Love and Sexuality 40.
4.1 Bad parental relations and 3ib shuma elik! 40. 4.2 Let’s talk about love, but not about everything 42.
4.3 Marriage 44.
4.4 Siblings 46.
4.5 Interim Conclusion 48.
5. Discussion and Conclusion 50.
5.1 Love and Sexuality 50. 5.2 Intersectionality of Shia Religion 52. 5.3 Intersections of the Nuclear Family 53.
5.4 Final Conclusion 56.
Bibliography 57.
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Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank all my informants for sharing their thoughts, ideas and
experiences. Without their kindness, trust and openness, this research would not have been possible. Especially, I would like to thank Rhanim and Hassan, who both always helped me and tried to connect me with other students for interviews.
The next person I would like to thank is my supervisor for this thesis, Robbert Woltering. I would like to thank him for being patient when I switched the topic of this thesis, for his critical, constructive feedback, for helping me with analytical doubts, guiding me in narrowing down my topic and advising me in my role as a researcher.
Additionally, I would like to thank Marina de Regt for her feedback on my research proposal and for giving me advice in the field. Her critical feedback on the proposal helped me to improve the theoretical framework of this thesis and to strengthen my methodologies. With her advice, she helped me to be a better anthropologist. In addition, I would like to thank Joseph Alagha, for his wise counsel about my research, but also concerning the practical problems of living in Beirut. Furthermore, he gave me very motivating feedback, when I felt that the research was going too slow.
Furthermore, I could not have written this proposal without the support of my family and my friends. I would like to especially thank my mother for her moral support when I needed it the most. Also, I would like to thank Wietske Boskma and Judith van Uden for their moral and intellectual support. I am grateful to Nancy Mouawad and Issa Haddad for their moral support, good company in my spare time in Lebanon, and for checking parts of my thesis from a Lebanese perspective. Finally, I am thankful to my uncle, Paul Thuilliez, who helped me to improve the level of English of this thesis.
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Abstract
In no society sexuality is left unregulated. Family and religion are two important factors that mostly come with rules, expectations and advice for sexual activity, but also for love, a feeling or experience that could lead to sexual activity. A sect of religion who has
extraordinary thoughts about the regulations of love and sexuality are the Shia Muslims, because an essential part of these Muslims accepts short-term marriages, mut’a marriages. This thesis is an exploration of the interconnections between the nuclear family and
religiosity with experiences of love and sexuality among Shia students at the Lebanese University in Beirut. This study is based on eleven weeks of fieldwork in Beirut in which nineteen in-depth interviews were done with students who spoke openly about their experiences of love and sexuality. The main question is: How do Shia students of the
Lebanese University in Beirut experience love and sexuality before the permanent marriage in relation to ideas, rules and expectations of religion and the nuclear family?
This research aims towards a deeper understanding of the interaction of family, religion and gender on experiences of love and sexuality for Shia students of the Lebanese University. This research shows that family and religion are tightly connected factors, because
differences or similarities with parents in religion affect family bonds, communication and the way in which students deal with parental advices, rules and expectations. When there are great differences between religious ideas of parents and students it is less likely that students follow parental advice and talk with their parents. Women who shared the same religious beliefs as their parents were likely to follow the rules of their parents and have abstinence from sexual activity before marriage, however this was not the case for the men. Physical borders were however also apparent for men, but less strict. Furthermore, male sexual experiences were less likely to be in a religious context, were female first sexual experiences were always in a mut’a context or for one woman in a forced context, being raped. This research explores the interconnections of gender, religiosity and family by looking at experiences of love and sexuality of Shia students.
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1. Introduction
“When I was eighteen years old, I got confused between myself and religion. I had met a boy, and he seemed really religious, so I thought he could help me, but it turned out to be the upside down. I lost my virginity-card with him. I thought to be with him forever, and he said that we were going to get married. I believed him. A week after this happened, I discovered that he not only did the mut’a (short-term marriage) with me, but also with two other women and that he was still talking to his ex. I was so angry and never talked to him again, even though he tried hard to see me. We did mut’a because he did not want to do the haram, but it is wrong! Mut’a should not be done by just two persons like we did it. It needs a sheik and should not just be done for sex. After this situation, I started to doubt religion even more. I believe in God and that he is by our side, but I did not seem to find a religion. A year ago, I also removed my hijab. It was a war between my parents and me.” Ghada (21 years old)
This story of Ghada shows how religiosity can relate to love and sexuality. Later in this interview, it was also to be seen how the difference in religiosity had affected the
interaction between her and her parents concerning love and sexuality. I asked her whether she could tell her parents about what happened with this man and she answered: ‘No! I am
sexually active, but they cannot know! It is the biggest sin ever. If they knew this happened, they would be really mad and treat me bad. They have strict rules. You cannot touch or give a man a handshake.’
The interaction of religiosity, family, love and sexuality is the central topic of this research. The story of Ghada is just one example of this interaction, and this research will show that these interactions vary for each student depending on their gender, religiosity, bond with their parents and sexual activity. The main goal of this thesis is to explore how students’ experiences of love and sexual activity are affected by their religiosity and nuclear family communication, rules and advice.
Baydoun states that young adults in Lebanon are subjects to the hegemony of the
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with legal jurisdiction about marriage and the family.2 These are mostly groups who
promote sexual activity only inside marriage. Statistics, however, show that Lebanese youth have sex at a young age and that this occurs in most cases outside of marriage.3 These
results of Baydoun show a significant interaction of family, religion, love and sexuality in the lives of young adults in the entire Lebanese society. This thesis aims to explore this
interaction for a smaller group of these Lebanese young adults, which are Shia students at the Lebanese University.
The focus is on Shia students to eliminate the influence of sectarian differences, plus it makes this research more reliable since it makes the research group more focused. This study is focused on Shia since it takes essential differences between Shia and Sunni in Lebanon into consideration. The most significant difference, relevant for this research is the existence of mut’a, which was also an important aspect of the story of Ghada. Mut’a is a temporary marriage, that is only approved in Shi’ism.4 It is a contract for a certain
pre-determined period, and something should be given to the woman. The story of Ghada illustrates that the rules of mut’a vary widely, but there are also differences in ideas on whether mut’a should be accepted.
The research focuses on students at the Lebanese University to ensure a focus on a lower middle class. This focus is made because previous studies about love and sexuality among students in Lebanon were done to a broad sample of students and did not make a
difference in social class.56 Furthermore, a study of Michael Oghia7 to this topic, was
conducted among students in the American University of Beirut, which is the most expensive university in Lebanon. The Lebanese University is the only state university in Lebanon. The Lebanese University has different departments, spread all over Lebanon, so
2 Azzah Shararah Baydoun,"Sex education in Lebanon: Between secular and religious discourses," in
Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East: Challenges and Discourses, ed. Pinar Ilkkaracan (New York:
Routledge, 2012), 98.
3 Baydoun, "Sex education in Lebanon,” 90.
4 Linda S. Walbridge, Without forgetting the imam: Lebanese Shi’ism in an American community. (Detroit
Wayne State University Press, 1996), 64.
5 Bernadet Barbour, and Pascale Salameh, “Knowledge and Practices of University students in Lebanon
regarding Contraception,” Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 15, no.2 (2009): 387-399.”
6 Pascale Salameh et al., "Attitudes towards and practice of sexuality among university students in
Lebanon." Journal of biosocial science 48, no.2 (2016).”
7Michael J. Oghia, "Different cultures, one love: Exploring romantic love in the Arab world." In Intercultural
communication with Arabs: Studies in Educational, Professional and Societal Contexts, ed. Rana Radawi (Singapore: Springer, 2015), 279-294.
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most people who go to this university lived already with their families near to Beirut because you do not necessarily need to travel far from your family for studying. However, some departments like the medical department, are only to be found in Beirut. The university fees are the lowest, but it is very hard to get accepted since the entry demands high grades.
Influence of religion in the Lebanese University is clearly demonstrated by the religious separation between Christian and Muslim departments. Whether this is done consciously by the university or by the students themselves is not clear. Whilst explaining my research in the department of architecture, a teacher directed me to other departments, since there were mostly Christians in this department. However, divisions are not only seen between religions, but also within religion. For example, no cafeterias were open in the department of Hadath, the biggest campus, due to the influence of Hezbollah and Amal, (two Shia parties in Lebanon), who are fighting for the right to have these cafeterias.
Most informants live in the southern part of Beirut, where the majority of the community is Shia. Exceptions were four informants. One was a total exception and lived in Aramoun, a mostly Maronite village half an hour by car from Beirut. Two others lived in Ras al Nabah and Mazraa. These are areas in the Western part of Beirut. Ras al Nabah and Mazraa are mixed areas. The last informant lives in Mar Mikhael, which is in the north and is a popular, mostly Maronite area. All informants live with one or both of their parents.
Nevertheless, all informants saw themselves as Shia, this was not always based on their real feeling on religion, but more on the background of their father’s origin. If their father was Shia, they too considered themselves Shia. Two informants, Nesrine and Imane, had Sunni mothers. This research focusses on students that are not in a permanent marriage. The average age of regular (i.e. not mut’a) marriage for Lebanese women was 28.8 and for men 32.8 in 2006.89 My informants are all younger than these ages.
At the departments of this research, the majority of students are women. This research is focused on both men and women, even though men were generally not having a high
8 “Lebanese Women a Diminishing Marriage Market” AUBulletin Today, accessed September 26, 2017,
https://staff.aub.edu.lb/~webbultn/v8n2/article21.htm
9 World Health Organization, Defining sexual health: report of a technical consultation on sexual health.
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standard of English language and were less apparent in the university. Heterosexual relationships and sexuality are practices concerning both sexes, so both male and female informants are necessary to be included for a holistic understanding of premarital romance and sexuality in connection with family relations and religious ties. Furthermore, the dynamics between men and women and different rules for males and females, illustrate important gender dynamics in these premarital relations better. Sexual identities and gender are always linked and connected.10 Perceptions of sexuality depend on conceptions
of gender and perceptions of gender depend on conceptions of sexuality as will be illustrated in the theoretical framework.
This study is based on nineteen interviews. Ten interviews were with women between the age of 18 and 24, with an average age of 20 and the other nine interviews were with men between the age of 20 and 24, with an average age of 21,4. This age difference is mostly related to the fact that the men did not always go directly to this university. They went first to another university, have study delays or travelled abroad, whereas most of the women went directly to the university.
The goal of this research is to investigate how love and sexuality before marriage intertwine with religion and family for Shia students at the Lebanese University in Beirut. This will be done by means of qualitative research into the following main question:
- How do Shia students at the Lebanese University in Beirut experience love and sexuality before the permanent marriage in relation to ideas, rules and
expectations of religion and the nuclear family?
An answer is given to this main question with the help of the following sub-questions:
- How do Shia students at the Lebanese University experience love and sexuality before the permanent marriage?
- What is the role of religion in the lives of Shia students at the Lebanese University? - How does religiosity interact with the love lives and sexual experiences of Shia
students at the Lebanese University?
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- How do Shia students at the Lebanese University communicate with their parents concerning love and sexuality?
- How do Shia students at the Lebanese University deal with rules, advice and expectations of their nuclear family regarding their love lives and sexual activity?
The faculty of information, where half of my fieldwork was conducted, is a six-floor building, which is not well maintained, is no longer white but grey, has a little café on top and when you follow the road downhill, you find the main entrance. The café is small and consists of eight red plastic tables with chairs around them on which mostly women were seated. Around half of these women wore a hijab11 and some also wore a lengthier hijab and an
abaya.12
On my first day, when I entered, all eyes were on me. To ease my discomfort, I bought a bottle of water, took a seat and started a conversation with a woman wearing a purple hijab. I told her that I was at the university to do a research concerning love and the
interconnections with family and religion among Muslim students. To allow for the idea that talking about sexuality might be embarrassing or scary for her and might stop her talking to me, I did not tell her this part of the research. Since conversations about love can progress naturally to the topic of sexuality, I did not feel I was hiding this from her.
She thought the subject was interesting and she introduced me to a big group of students who were comfortably seated in a sunlit open area, in a circle of old furniture. This furniture were old chairs, an old wooden bench and broken pieces of sofa with broken fake black leather by which you saw the filling of the sofa coming out. As they gave me a place to sit, the group created attention and more students came to join. It was a mixed group of around fifteen people of which two men and the rest were women in a mixture of dress, some with short skirts, some with jeans and t-shirts and some with the inevitable abaya and/or hijabs. At that time, I did not yet focus on Shia. When I spoke about my research focus on Muslims, they emphasized the different sects within Islam, such as Druze, Shia and Sunni. All of which were represented within the group.
11 Hijab is the Arab word for veil. It only covers the hair and sometimes also the shoulders.
12 An Abaya, is a loose fitting dress that has a length till the ground, has long sleeves and mostly goes with a
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They were all very interested in the topic of the research and wanted to be involved right away in a group setting. So, I asked them a couple of basic questions about love which they discussed together. Their degree of interest and friendship was surprising. Readily accepting me into their group, they taught me Lebanese Arabic, and in the end, they invited me for the Ashura remembrance, a meeting in the period to remember the death of Imam Hussayn and his family, the next day in the University.
Fieldwork was done from the second of October 2017 till the sixteenth of December 2017. This research is written by means of four research methods; participant observation, informal conversations, in-depth interviews and informal focus groups. Participant
observation means that I joined informants in their daily activities and activities considering my subject of research. In this way, tacit knowledge became clear. This is information where informants are not actively aware of. Besides, participant observation made me able to show the difference between what informants say and what they do.13
When doing this participant observation, I deliberately positioned myself in a place,
watched the students, who are the principal actors of this research, and I became involved with them and their activities.14 My presence influenced the setting sometimes such as
when students started to talk in English or during the religious remembrance ceremony of Ashura they sat next to me and tried to pay attention to the Sheik who was talking to the group. Later, they declared to never listen to this type of gathering, but they now freely did it for me. A hindrance while doing participant observation was the language barrier since most of the time students spoke with each other in Arabic, and my Arabic is not good enough to follow entire conversations. Sometimes translations were done for me, but also in translation, information can be missed, because they are a précis of the complete story.
I mostly hung out with students inside and around the university. I went with them to cafés, malls and their lessons. A specific activity was the attendance at the religious ceremony of Ashura within the University activity. Another specific activity was a gathering of a beginning student association. I took some ideas about student’s family lives, because of my
roommates. They both are Shia students from the Lebanese University. Their family came
13 Kathleen M. DeWalt, and Billie R. DeWalt, Participant observation: A guide for fieldworkers (Plymouth:
Altamira Press, 2011), 1-2.
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over sometimes, and they took me to the village where they grew up and where their parents and younger siblings live. In the end, I did not interview the women I lived with because all my interview informants lived with their parents and they did not. Furthermore, I did not feel that they were very willing to participate and the oldest one was twenty-eight, so she was also way older than the average informant.
Participant observation allowed me to make essential observations and have informal conversations about dating, premarital love relations and sexuality. Furthermore, it allowed building rapport which resulted in improving the information received. Having informal conversations was affording much interesting and useful information for the research. While having this day-to-day interaction, I was sometimes steering the conversations by asking follow-up questions or questions that were intended to move back the conversation to the subject of my research. These informal conversations gave me extra information that was helpful during interviews or that added new information to the interviews I had already done.
I also did some observations in places where Shia students at the Lebanese University claimed to have had experiences of love. I went to different malls and cafes, places that were often considered as places for dating. The majority of students had met their partners in such cafes or the university, so my observations about flirting were mostly there. It was difficult to meet with students outside the university since they always said to be very busy with their studies and on the weekends, most of them went to their village. This meant that I haven’t been able to be involved in many family spheres. Besides, religious gatherings were not that apparent, so I only have been to one in the University. I was looking for these religious and family gatherings to provide research concerning the interaction of religion and family on premarital love and sexuality. Now, I mostly investigated this from the student’s perspective.
While doing participant observation, great care was taken with notes to ensure that observations were fair and relevant and allowed the improvement of my methodologies whilst reducing the chance of being influenced with my own opinion. Because of my notes I would also find subjects I needed to ask more about in informal conversations. I sometimes took short, jotted notes in the field. At the end of each day of participant observation, I
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made more elaborate field notes.15 These full field notes exist of direct observation notes,
researcher interference notes, analytic notes and personal notes.16 The information from
the notes was assisting the results obtained from in-depth interviews.
Before doing interviews, I always tried to establish a level of rapport. This meant that I let my informants trust me and made them feel comfortable being around me before talking about sensitive subjects.17 This sometimes worked out better than other times and, in some
cases, this rapport was just getting stronger after the interviews. Students were very open even though the rapport was not always as good as I preferred it to be. This might be related to the knowledge of students about research in general. Three female informants emphasized the importance of this kind of research and informed me how pleased they were that I was researching this topic. So, my work was appreciated and seen as valuable for these women.
These in-depth interviews were semi-structured. I had a list of standard questions, but these were not always asked in the same order, depending on the answers informants gave. I always checked in the end whether all questions were answered. In these interviews, I also further developed conversations about topics that passed by in day-to-day conversations.
After four interviews I reflected whether the list of questions was still valuable or whether it was missing anything. Some changes were made in the way I asked about specific topics and I added a couple of questions. The list of questions consisted of standard questions, but in the interviews, there were also interrogate questions which tried to clarify the individual answers of the informants 18 or which were used to develop fascinating results in the
previous answers. When I read the interview notes later, and still had some follow-up questions, I asked these in a non-official setting of day-to-day conversations. I always tried to clarify whether I could use this information in the research.
I tried to find a representative group of informants in religiousness/liberalness, by finding my informants in different campuses and by using different connections, but this mission was not fully accomplished. My interview informants vary widely in their religiosity, but all
15 Lawrence W. Neuman, Understanding research (Boston: Pearson, 2016), 280. 16 Neuman, Understanding research, 281.
17 Neuman, Understanding research, 272.
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have one thing in common, which is that they were all willing to speak openly with me about their love and sexual lives. Some students warned me that I would not be able to speak to the very religious men and women since their English was not of a reasonable level and/or they would not be willing to speak to me. This idea was confirmed when I had
informal conversations with two very strict religious informants, and they both said no when I asked them for an interview. Another example of this warning was that the male students that organized the Ashura remembrance had not an accurate level of English to let me interview them. Furthermore, the use of the snowball effect made that I did seven
interviews with unveiled women and three interviews with veiled women which is not very representative since more than half of the women in the universities were veiled.
Nevertheless, wearing the veil does not necessarily represent religiosity as one informant wore the veil because her parents wanted her to wear it.
All nineteen interviews, except one, were in English. This other interview I did was in French. However, the level of French of this man was not very high, but he managed to give me information that is useful for this research. One other interview was with a man with a low level of English, but we solved this problem with the help of a friend in common who was really trusted by the informant and who translated parts if the informant did not know the words. All the other informants had a reasonable level of English through which they could express themselves clearly. Some studied English and others had to read articles for their studies in English.
Most interviews were in cafes or in the university. I always conducted the interviews in a place where the student would feel comfortable and at ease to talk about the topic of my research. In most places, there were other people around us, but this did not seem to affect the data. Only once, during an interview with Jade, a big group of women entered the restaurant all wearing a black veil and abaya. One woman sat close and sometimes looked at us over her shoulder, so this has probably influenced the interview. I made notes of this while writing down his answers and I was aware that his answer became more religiously correct after the women just sat next to us. However, in the end, he did tell that he broke some rules and that he had kissed a woman.
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In addition to one-on-one interviews, I had some informal focus groups which gave me clear insights on differences in point of views on topics between people. These focus groups mostly happened by surprise when I found myself among a group of students and they initiated a conversation concerning my subject. Questions in these group conversations were mostly regarding more general topics like how people date, what they think about sexual activity before marriage and how they see mut’a. This way of gathering data also shows more of the social context and how people talk about these topics.19 These focus
groups gave me new insights that did not come forth out of personal interviews.20
The final part of my research was the analysis. I analysed my data by coding it to find similarities and differences between the students. In this way, the sub-questions and eventually the main question were answered. In my results, I did not use the real names of the informants, but pseudonyms and I sometimes made minor unimportant changes, so that my informants were protected and their stories which they told me in confidence, cannot be traced back to them by others.
19 Evers, Kwalitatief interviewen, 31. 20 Neuman, Understanding Research, 288.
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2. Theoretical Framework
This chapter explains the theoretical debates around love and sexuality with a focus on Lebanon. Firstly, it elaborates the most important and relevant scientific debates of essential concepts for this research. These concepts are love, sexuality, gender, family and Shia religion/religiosity. Secondly, this chapter discusses relevant research into love and sexuality in Muslim majority countries. Thirdly, romance and sexuality in Lebanon will be widely elaborated. Last, this chapter will explore other circumstances such as politics and media that affect love and sexuality, but also family and religion.
2.1 Love
The concept of romantic love has mainly been ignored within cross-cultural academic literature in the Arab world.21 For example, in anthropology kinship has long been the key
for research to intimate relationships rather than the relationships they represented. The study of love moves beyond these kinship systems.22 Plotnicov states that anthropologists
and social scientists saw romantic love as unique for the modern west. If anthropologist found romantic love in the field, they ignored it, since romantic love was perceived as a luxury in human life, which in their ideas, only existed in Western, elite, educated
societies.23 In history, love was perceived as a Western invention to create a more subtle
and delicate way to deal with sexual activity.24 However, Jankowiak and Fischer compared
166 ethnographies and remarked that romantic love exists in every culture. In 88,6 percent of ethnographies they found this romantic love directly and in the other cases they could not find it in the texts but could not exclude it either. 25
21 Oghia, “Exploring romantic love in the Arab World,” 279.
22 Mark B. Padilla, Jennifer S. Hirsch, and Miguel Munoz-Laboy. Love and globalization: Transformations of
intimacy in the contemporary world (Vanderbilt University Press, 2007), xiv
23 Conrad Phillip Kottak, Cultural anthropology: Appreciating cultural diversity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011)
272.
24 William M. Reddy, “The Rule of Love. The History of Western Romantic Love in Comparative Perspective,” in
New Dangerous Liaisons. Discourses on Europe and Love in the Twentieth Century, ed. Luisa Passerini, Liliana
Ellena and Alexander C.T. Geppert (New York: Berghahn 2010), 35.
25 William R. Jankowiak, and Edward F. Fischer. "A cross-cultural perspective on romantic love," Ethnology 31,
15
Padilla sees love as a useful lens for social analysis since it shows complex interconnections between cultural, economic, interpersonal and emotional realms of experience. 26 Love is a
useful concept in social sciences since it reveals much about the ways that human societies organize social life and sexuality, but also reveals how individuals are in continuous
interaction with social discourses. Ideas and experiences of love are based on specific cultural and historical contexts.27 Furthermore, the study of love fills a gap in research on
gender and sexuality which often ignored the complex, personal motivations underlying sexual practices and relationships.28
Gender is an essential concept in the study of love since cultures ascribe different roles to men and women regarding love. King uses the concept of Børressen in which gender is a socio-biological category and not just a result of history and culture29. This means that
gender has a base in biology, which is sex in the sense of being born with male or female organs, but gender is also constructed in dialogue with social processes, history and culture. Butler adds to this vision that gender is a process of embodiment which is the result of repeating performances30. Another important vision of Butler on gender is intersectionality,
which means that gender identity is interacting with other categories of identity like religion, class, ethnicity, age, sexuality and regional conditions.31
This intersectionality of gender is also relevant to love. Love is also affected by identities as religion, ethnicity, age, sexuality and regional conditions. In addition, love is affected by family, power, gender dynamics, globalization, religious sectarianism, modernity, social change, resistance, intergenerational relationships, patriarchy, individualization32, politics,
emotions, feelings and previous experiences.
Because of the cultural and historical contexts defining love, it is difficult to give one standard definition of love. Hellen Harris found seven shared experiences of being in love for every cultural setting in psychological literature. These experiences are a desire for
26 Padilla, Hirsch, and Munoz-Laboy. Love and globalization, Xiv and xxvi. 27 Ibidem.
28 Ibidem.
29 Ursula King, “Introduction: Gender and the Study of Religion” in Religion and Gender ed. Ursula King.
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995), 6.
30 Anne Cranny-Francis, Wendy Waring, Pam Stavropoulos and Joan J. Kirkby, Gender studies: Terms and
Debates (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 4.
31 Judith Butler, Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (New York: Routledge, 1990): 6. 32 Oghia “Exploring romantic love in the Arab World,” 281.
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unification with someone, idealization of the beloved, exclusivity, intrusive thinking about the loved one, emotional dependency, recording of motivational hierarchies or life priorities and a powerful sense of empathy and concern for the beloved. 33 Love in this research will
be focused on romantic, heterosexual love from the perspectives of my informants, which are developed in chapter three.
2.2 Sexuality
Sexuality is one of the most powerful dimensions of individual intersubjective human life.34
Sexuality is an individual experience which is expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours, practices, roles and relationships.3536 Sexual activity is
not only about erotic pleasure, but it is also physical action of intimacy between two persons.37 In this research, the concept of sexuality will be focused on thoughts, values,
norms and experiences of sexual activity.
Sexuality is a field of power differentiation because sexual activity can be the base for kinship structures and social reproduction. It is one of most private topics, but because of reproduction, every single society regulates sexual activity.38 All societies define and enforce
norms about sexual activity. These norms answer quesions as how, with whom, when, where, how often and why people have sex. How these norms are determined varies in each society by formal and informal regulations. The formal regulations can be seen in laws and religion. The informal regulations are created by family and friends, but also other members of society that perform social control.39
33 Helen Harris “Rethinking Polynesian Heterosexual Relationships; A Case Study on Mangaia, Cook Islands” in
Romantic Passion: A Universal Experience?, ed. William Jankowiak (New York: Columbia University Press 1995),
102-03
34 Jose Casanova, “Nativism and the Politics of Gender in Catholicism and Islam,” in Gendering Religion and
Politics: Untangling Modernities, ed. Hanna Herzog, and Ann Braude, (New York; Palgrave Macmillan, 2009),
39.
35 World Health Organization, Defining sexual health.
36 Mathilde Azar, Thilo Kroll, and Caroline Bradbury Jones, “Lebanese women and sexuality: A qualitative
inquiry,” Sexual Reproductive Healthcare 8 (January 2016): 13.
37 Casanova, “Nativism and the Politics of Gender,” 39. 38 Ibidem.
39 PJ McGann “Healing, (Disorderly) Desire: Medical-Therapeutic regulation of sexuality.” in Introducing the
New Sexuality Studies. ed. Steven Seidman, Nancy Fischer and Chet Meeks London (New York: Routledge
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Casanova states that individuals that fit within these norms are rewarded with mental health, respectability, legality, social and physical mobility, institutional support and
material benefits. Others who do not fit into these norms are subjected to a presumption of mental illness, disreputability, criminality, restricted social and physical mobility, loss of institutional support and economic sanctions.40 This idea of sexuality from Casanova fits
with the idea of Giddens that sexuality is a social construct which operates within fields of power and not just exists out of biological stimulations.41
So, numerous factors affect the experience of sexuality. That’s why intersectionality must be included as an analytical tool in research into sexuality.42 In this research, there will be a
focus on religion and the family, but it will not be denied that there are other factors that affect sexuality and love.
2.3 Interconnections of the Nuclear Family
Ayyash Abdo states that the nuclear family has a very important role in the lives of Lebanese, regardless of their religion, gender, financial status or geographic location. The extended family is the second most important social group. Lebanese youth live in a relatively collective society with life goals which fit into collective goals, with Muslim youth having more collective attributes than their Christian peers. 43
As the interpretation of love and sexuality depend on interactions with family and religion, family is not a stable entity. Families are not stable and are formed and reformed by
economic factors, social factors, religion and state interventions.44 Week gives examples in
which sexual life is affected by this process of forming and reforming of the family. These are encouraging or discouraging marriage, the frequency of reproduction, attitudes to non-procreative sex and non-hetero sex, acceptance of cohabitation and power of men over
40 Gayle S. Rubin “Thinking Seks” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Henry Abelove, Michele Aina
Barale, David M. Halperin (New York: Routledge, 1993), 12.
41 Anthony Giddens, The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. (Oxford:
Polity Press, 1992), 23.
42 Homa Hoodfar, “Kicking Back: The Sports Arena and Sexual Politics” in Sexuality in Muslim contexts;
Restrictions and Resistance, ed. Anissa Hélie and Homa Hoodfar (London and New York: Zed Books, 2012), 323.
43 Huda Ayyash Abdo, “Adolescents´ self-image in Lebanon: Implications for Education.” In International
Perspectives on Adolescence, ed Frank Pajares, and Tim Urdan (Connecticut: Information Age Publishing, 2003),
180.
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women.45 In this thesis, the focus is on family attitudes towards non-procreative sex and this
research aims to explore family positions towards love. This study also touches on the topic of power relations between men and women by comparisons of experiences of love,
sexuality, family and religion between male and female students.
Parents have a great impact on their children’s social competencies and skills, which are among others expressed in romantic relationships. Social learning theory and attachment theory together provide a framework of parental transmissions of behavioural repertoires and their disposition concerning intimacy.46 The attachment theory states that secure
attachment leads to more compassion and considerateness in relationships than insecure attachment.47
This theory is confirmed by the research of Jaccard and others to African Americans in Philadelphia. This study states that the quality of the relationship between the mother and child affects the relationship between disapproval and the initiation of sexual intercourse. Their African-American children were more likely to delay their first sexual contact when the relationship with at least one parent was perceived as warm and caring. However, after the adolescents had their first sexual intercourse, the impact of the parental relationship quality became less.48
Social learning theory of Bandura states that new behaviours are acquired by a model of behavioural transmission that exists of observing the behaviours of others, direct
experiences which are punished or rewarded and possible rewarding and punishing consequences that influence future activities.49 The idea of rewards and punishments for
behaviour that come from parents are expressed in rules, expectations and advice. These
45 Weeks, Sexuality, 25.
46 Wyndol, B. Furman, Bradford Brown, and Candice Feiring, ed. The development of romantic relationships in
adolescence (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 254.
47 Jeremy Holmes, The search for the secure base: Attachment theory and psychotherapy (New York:Routledge,
2014), xiii.
48 James Jaccard, Patricia J. Dittus, and Vivian V. Gordon, "Maternal correlates of adolescent sexual and
contraceptive behavior." Family planning perspectives (1996): 164-165.
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are not static because parents do not always respond to behaviour in the same way because they evaluate the intentions of the child.50
Aspya and others concluded from research in Oklahoma that parents have the opportunity and ability to influence their children’s sexual behaviour decisions with communication.51
Their research suggests that communication between children and parents can increase the likelihood of youth sexual abstinence and safer sexual health practices regardless of
demographic characteristics.52 Youth whose parents had clear rules and youth who had
spoken with their parents concerning what is right and wrong in sexual activity and about delaying sexual activity were significantly more likely not to have sex or wait longer when compared to youth whose parents had not communicated this information.53
In this research, the interconnection between love, sexuality and family is explored from the perspective of the students. Following the social learning theory, more insights are gained by looking at their reflections on their parent's expectations, advice and rules. Following the attachment theory, reflections on the family bonds and interactions with their parents and siblings about love and sexuality are studied.
2.4 Religion, religiosity and Shia religion
Nowadays, the scientific debates around religion are tightly connected to debates of secularization. Erosion of religion was seen as a feature of modernity before, but this claim became questioned. On the contrary to secularization, there are also different processes of perserverance of religion going on in the world, like new religious movements and growth of spirituality.54 Nowadays, more nuanced understandings of religion have emerged. These
new understandings take historical, geopolitical and socio-cultural specificities into serious consideration. Religion is a complex multidimensional phenomenon with different forms depending on different contexts of modernization, history, social and cultural systems.55
50 Albert Bandura, "Social learning of moral judgments." Journal of personality and social psychology 11, no. 3
(1969): 278.
51 Cheryl B. Aspya, et al. "Parental communication and youth sexual behaviour." Journal of adolescence 30,
no.3 (2007): 449.
52 Aspya et al., “Parental communication,” 462. 53 Ibidem.
54 Nynäs, Religion, Gender and Sexuality, 1-2. 55 Ibidem
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Lassander argues that religion should be approached as a hybrid concept. He says that the only way to deeply understand religion is to study individual religious expressions. An
individual's religion is a process which depends on what someone does with his/her religion, how someone talks about religion and how social actors are involved and engaged.56 Nynäs adds to this theory of Lassander that this idea of religion is embedded in social, political and cultural processes and in how categories as 'religious', 'secular', 'public' and 'private' are manifested in new ways.57 This thesis aims to have an individual approach, which considers mostly social and cultural processes that are related to family, love and sexuality. The concepts of religion of Nynäs and Lassander are therefore taken as important. These concepts, show the same idea of intersectionality, which is illustrated in the previous paragraphs. So, like the other important concepts of this thesis, religion is intersectional to other categories such as class, ethnicity, age, politics and regional conditions.
A study of Abdel-Khalek to religiosity and its relation to happiness among students at the Lebanese University concluded that women are more religious than men. This was a study concerning Shia, Sunni and Christians, but he states that religious difference and its
correlation to the study variables was not statistically significant.58 An essential aspect of this research is that in Lebanon someone’s religion is part of his or her personal and social identity and not a reflection of the level of religious involvement.59 This is not only the case in Lebanon, but these social identities are specifically important in Lebanon because of the sectarian divides and their history.
When Shia students are not affected by their personal religiosity, they are probably affected by the beliefs of their families. The Quran and the Hadith, the behaviour of the last prophet, influence the Shia family in a model-oriented way.60 These parts of religion show examples
56Mika Lassander, "Grappling with liquid modernity: Investigating post-secular religion," Post-Secular
Society (2012): 242-243.
57 Nynäs, Religion, Gender and Sexuality, 5.
58 Ahmed Abdel-Khalek, “Happiness, health, and religiosity among Lebanese young adults,” Cogent Psychology
2, no. 1 (2015): 3 and 9.
59Lilian A. Ghandour, Elie G. Karam, and Wadih E. Maalouf. "Lifetime alcohol use, abuse and dependence
among university students in Lebanon: Exploring the role of religiosity in different religious faiths." Addiction 104, no. 6 (2009): 942.
60 Batoul Pakzad, and Hassan Alipour. "Justice and Family Issues in Shia: Dealing with Domestic Violence." in
Women and Children as Victims and Offenders: Background, Prevention, Reintegration, ed. Helmut Kury, Evelyn Shea, and Slawomir Redo. (Springer Cham, 2016), 702.
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that should be followed or show mistakes that should not be made. Being affected by religion is a part of social learning theory because these examples in religion form a model of behavioural transmission. This social learning is, however, a dialectical process with other social actors and experiences of which can be learned such as peers, siblings, neighbours and previous experiences of themselves.
2.5 Love and Sexuality in the Muslim world.
Friedland, Afary, Gardinali and Naslund did a Facebook survey on heterosexual love and sexuality in seven Muslim majority countries (Lebanon was left out). This study included around 15000 respondents and showed both differences and similarities between Muslim and secular citizens on their interpretations of love and sexuality.
Firstly, the researchers showed that the desire for love in marriage crosses the secular and religious divide. Observant and pious Muslims want love as much as their secular fellow citizens. Religious beliefs may not have much effect on wanting love. However, this research shows that every form of adherence to religious norms has a significant negative effect on approval of unmarried men and women being alone together.61
Secondly, this research showed the discrepancy between norms and behaviour for this group. They showed that 32.3% of respondents who said that being alone with someone of the opposite gender was always wrong, nevertheless had engaged in such an act. 62 The
differences between norms and behaviour are always to be questioned, but in the study of love and sexuality, the difference might be even more important.
Thirdly, a prominent finding of this research is that women are just as likely as men to engage in intimate premarital interactions of which their parents and their communities do not approve. This is a fascinating result, since women experience much higher risks than men that come with discovery of their pre-marital sexual activity. These are risks such as ruining one’s marital prospects, banishment, beatings and even death.63 Yet, following this
61 Roger Friedland, Janet Afary, Paolo Gardinali, and Gambria Naslund. "Love in the Middle East: The
contradictions of romance in the Facebook World." Critical Research on Religion 4, no. 3 (2016): 245.
62 Friedland, Afary, Gardinaly and Naslund, “Love in the Middle East,” 246. 63 Friedland, Afary, Gardinaly and Naslund, “Love in the Middle East,” 249.
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research, young, religious single women are knowingly engaging in risky intimate behaviours.64
2.6 Love and Sexuality in Lebanon.
Qualitative research into the conception of love was done before among twenty-one students at the American University of Beirut by Michael Oghia. These students had
different religions, and some were born in other countries than Lebanon. All of them desired romantic love, they highly valuated love and saw it as an essential to human existence, but it was somewhat difficult for them to define romantic love.65
The informants frequently connected love to Western cultural ideas of individualism, which clashed with Lebanese honour, shame, family collectivity and traditions. Love was also seen in this research as a luxury by the informants, linked to social class. Students connected love to marriage and contradictions of society and the family.66 The conclusion of the research
states that more research into love is needed to understand how demographic shifts and exposure to transnational media, modernization, globalization affect the family and the individuals.67 This research aims to do this with a narrow research group of Shia students
and a focus on religion and sexuality. This research is also different in that the Lebanese University attracts a very different student body than the American University of Beirut since the study fees are much higher in the AUB.
Two relevant qualitative studies are conducted into sexual activity among students in Lebanon. The latest is a study of Salameh and others in 2016 to 3384 students in seventeen different universities in Lebanon with a response rate of 79,8% on the questions on
sexuality. This study showed a big difference in sexual activity between women and men. A percentage of 85,1% of women and 34.8% of men stated never to have had sexual activity. For males, 29.9% had tried it, and 35.3% were regularly sexually active. For females, 5.3% had tried it, and 9.6% were regularly active.68
64 Friedland, Afary, Gardinaly and Naslund, “Love in the Middle East,” 252. 65 Oghia, "Romantic love in the Arab world," 299.
66 Ibidem.
67 Oghia, "Romantic love in the Arab world," 300.
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Previous research into Lebanese students from Salameh and Barbour in 2007 showed that most males (73.3%) and some females (21.8%) admitted having been engaged in sexual contact. These findings are in line with the findings of the research in 2016 in the argument that a smaller number of women than men are being sexually active. This contradicts the idea of Friedland and others in paragraph six that both men and women are as sexually active in Muslim countries.
In this study, most men had used condoms (86.1%), but women had generally not used any contraceptives (75.6%).69 A big problem revealed in this research is a low percentage of
sexually active students who used condoms for protection. The other research showed that mostly women lack knowledge and use of contraceptives. Sexually transmitted diseases are commonly reported in Lebanon, and young people do not always have the information needed to take responsibility for sexual health and safe sex.70
Barbour and Salameh conclude that hymen protection, and traditional values of chastity are very important in Lebanese society and society encourages sexual experience for males but prohibits these for females.71 However, this does not exclude women from sexual activity as
previously named studies show that premarital sex is existing among females as well in Lebanon.
The research from 2016 of Salameh and others showed that experiences of sexual activity were more common among students in higher age groups and especially among those from private universities. Furthermore, sexual activity was more common for students with higher economic status, for students who were cigarette and water pipe smokers and for students who were problematic alcohol and tobacco consumers.72 The region had an effect
too on sexual activity. Students living in the Mount Lebanon region were most sexually active. Beirut was the second region in which experiences of sexual activity were more common, with 38,9% of students who had engaged in sexual activity or who were regularly sexually active. 73
69 Barbour and Salameh, “University Students regarding Contraception,” 387–399. 70 Salameh et al., “Attitudes towards and practice of sexuality,” 234.
71 Barbour and Salameh, “University Students regarding Contraception,” 396. 72 Salameh et al., “Attitudes towards and practice of sexuality,” 240.
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Factors like ethnic groups, religion, religiosity, peer pressure and norms and parental monitoring are not included in these studies. These factors could affect attitude and practice of sexual activity and remain to be studied in future projects.74 This research aims
to elaborate on religiosity and parental/familial monitoring, so it fills some of the missing information which is stipulated in the research of Salameh and others.
2.7 Politics, Social Movements and Mass Media
As seen in this theoretical framework, the concepts of love, religion, sexuality and family all intersect and dependent on many variables. This part of the theoretical framework aims to describe other variables that affect religion, family, love and sexuality. These variables are Lebanon’s political environment, social movements and mass media.
To understand politics in Lebanon, it is necessary to comprehend the system of law, which is divided into two different sets of laws. The first set of laws consists of civil, secular laws, dealing with all matters other than family concerns. The second set of laws involves the personal status codes based on religion and sects. These are dealing with family issues like divorce, inheritance, guardianship, adoption and custody of children. Each religious sect can administer its own affairs and also legislate, judge and carry out sentences.75 Lebanon’s
great diversity in religions is not only visible in its laws, but is also integrated into the political system. The president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim. 76
The regional sectarian and political polarization causes many challenges. The Syrian war and the influx of refugees have intensified political and sectarian tensions, but local factors have been playing a crucial role to ensure the Lebanese system is exceptionally flexible.77 Among
these factors are shared socio-economic interests and local and foreign donors who
intervened in the refugee crisis with efforts to reduce differences.78 Political actors also act
74 Salameh et al., “Attitudes towards and practice of sexuality,” 245.
75 Lamia Rustum Shehadeh, "Gender-relevant legal change in Lebanon." Feminist Formations 22, no.3 (2010):
211- 212
76 Anna Hager, “Lebanon is more than a notion, more than a country. It is a message: Lebanon as a model of
Christian-Muslim relations,” Journal of Beliefs & Values (2017): 1.
77 Lorenzo Trombetta, “Willy-Nilly we have to live side by side; relationships between locals and newcomers at
the Syria-Lebanon Border” in Lebanon Facing The Arab Uprisings; Constraints and adaptation, ed. Rosita Di Peri, and Daniel Meier (London: Palgrave MacMillan 2017), 16.
25
on bridging sectarian divides, to avoid a new civil war breaking out. Hezbollah holds regular dialogue sessions with the Christian-based Kataeb Party, even though Israel supports
them.79 Furthermore, despite tensions between Hezbollah and the Sunni Future Movement,
Saad Hariri, the Sunni premier elected in 2016, invited Hezbollah to join his government and they agreed. This collaboration of both sides restrained supporters of both parties to pick up arms.
During my fieldwork, there was a beginning of a new tension between the Shia and Sunni parties. The Sunni prime minister, Saad Hariri, resigned under opposing pressures of Arabia and Hezbollah, using a video of his resignation speech that was taped in Saudi-Arabia. It took him some time to return to Lebanon, where he suspended his resignation. The reason why this all happened remains vague but is linked to disagreement about Hezbollah and Iran’s power in Lebanon, alleged threats to Hariri’s life and pressure from Saudi-Arabia. It could have caused trouble in Lebanon, but it remained peaceful.
There is now an emergence of civil society groups and grassroots organizations. These consist out of student activists and workers who advocate for a non-sectarian platform in opposition to sectarian-based politics.80 Many students in my research also exclaimed they
wanted politics without sectarian divides. A lawyer told me however that she thought this would never be possible since the entire law is based on sectarian divides and one single civil law would not work in Lebanon.
Moreover, Lebanon is witnessing several other political problems which are not directly linked to sectarian divides. These are large-scale corruption, the so-called washta, slow economic growth, lack of job creation, weak public institutions, high levels of youth unemployment and the Syrian crisis and its effects on the Lebanese society.81
A current feature of politics in Lebanon is the discussion concerning women’s rights.82
Changes in discriminating laws are taking place, but gender equality in law is not yet
79 Jeffrey G. Karam “Beyond Sectarianism: Understanding Lebanese Politics through a Cross-Sectarian Lens”
Middle East Brief, no. 107 (2017): 5.
80 Karam “Beyond Sectarianism,” 6.
81 Ghassan Dibeh, Ali Fakih, and Walid Marrouch, "Decision to Emigrate amongst the Youth in
Lebanon." International Migration 56, no. 1 ( February 2018)4.
82 Rosita Di Peri, and Daniel Meier, “Introduction” in Lebanon Facing The Arab Uprisings; Constraints and
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achieved. The sixteenth of August the parliament agreed to abolish Penal Code article 522, which stated that a rapist could not be punished if he married the victim. Saad Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister, tweeted about this: “All these steps are part of a journey that we
will pursue along with the Lebanese woman until she gains all her rights” 83. This means,
there is still a journey to be followed before women are on equal foot with men in law.
A great example of this inequality is the gender of judges. All judges in religious laws are men, many of whom are immersed in a patriarchal ideology and are therefore reluctant to rule in women’s favour. It is only recently that female lawyers and judges have been able to criticize discriminatory laws with the help of activists and women organizations.84 A rise of
feminist and social movements, globalization and socio-economic changes contribute to new sexual discourses characterized by openness. However, sexuality in Lebanon is still regulated by patriarchal and religious beliefs. 85
The outcomes of this research are affected by politics and social organizations, but also by mass media and globalization. Because of mass media, international TV shows became very popular in the Arab world, like Latin-American telenovelas, Egyptian melodramas and Hindu series. Another new phenomenon was talent shows. A show called Staracademy, captured the biggest audience in Arab television history in 2004, which was 80 percent of all viewers in some countries. This kind of entertainment attracts a larger and more diverse audience than that of previous television programming which was mostly news and sports. Now, the audience also includes women and youth. These television shows have caused big ongoing debates in the Arab world concerning the role of Islam in public life, Western cultural influence, political participation and gender relations.86
Another important aspect of popular culture is music. In 2003, Lebanese singer, Nancy Ajram shocked many people with her new video clip, Akhasmak ‘ah (I will taunt you), because of explicit erotic dancing and sexual appeal.87 The rise of conservatism in every
83 UN Women, “Parliament Repeals Rape Law” UN Women, accessed September 18, 2017,
http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2017/8/news-lebanon-parliament-repeals-rape-law
84 Shehadeh, "Gender-relevant legal change in Lebanon," 225. 85 Azar,“Lebanese Women and Sexuality,” 13.
86 Marwan M. Kraidy, Communication, Society and Politics: Reality Television and Arab Politics: Contention in
Public life (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 2.
87 Elisabeth Cestor, “Music and Television in Lebanon” in Music and Media in the Arab World, ed. Michael
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Arab country is interfering with the reception of music videos. The widening gap between conservatives and liberals leads to harsher critics than before. 88 Though the new generation
of singers is very popular and most of them gained considerable power because of their wealth. This may be best shown by Haifa Wehbe, the most popular and controversial singer from Lebanon, who is the subject of crude jokes. However, she and other famous female singers enjoy a rising social status in public life in Lebanon, where such recognition outside the music business is not common for women.89
The increase of conservatism has much effect on ideas on sexuality and love in Lebanon. Contemporary Muslim fundamentalism has focused on patriarchal hierarchy, by creating a more gender-segregated society in which women are subjects of men. Fundamentalists see male supremacy as ordained by God and female bodies in public space as sinful, and
threatening to the social order, morality and societal well-being. This results in strong ideas of compulsory veiling and limiting women’s public mobility, like in schools and jobs.90 In
addition to this focus of control on women, sexuality remains one of the cornerstones through which Islamic ideas are enforced.91 Hezbollah remains to have a strong influence in
Dahiyeh, the neighbourhood where most informants live.
Another influence on love and sexuality is the internet. A study into romance in Muslim countries of Sotoudeh, Friedland and Afary showed that internet had become an important vehicle for the pursuit of romance in the Muslim world. However, the data indicated that Facebook users who used the cyberspace to breach restrictive norms, tend to be the same people who breach them in real life. It turned out that men had more advantages of the possibilities of the internet as a romantic cyberspace than women. Women, however, make more use of the internet as a romantic space when being outside of their own country and living in the West.92
88 Cestor, “Music and Telivision,” 104. 89 Cestor, “Music and Television,” 104-105.
90 Homa Hoodfar and Ana Ghoreishian. “Morality policing and the Public Sphere: Women reclaiming their
Bodies and Rights” in Sexuality in Muslim contexts; Restrictions and Resistance, ed. Anissa Hélie and Homa Hoodfar (London and New York: Zed Books, 2012), 260.
91 Anissa Hélie, “Introduction,” in Sexuality in Muslim contexts; Restrictions and Resistance, ed. Anissa Hélie
and Homa Hoodfar (London and New York: Zed Books, 2012), 2.
92 Ramina Sotoudeh, Roger Friedland, and Janet Afary, "Digital romance: the sources of online love in the
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Mobile phones have a big impact in changing the environment for romance. Bowen, Green and James show this for young adults in Morocco, and Walter shows this idea for a Shia community in Pakistan.9394 In these studies, both research groups used mobile phones to
create a space to have a more romantic relationship, meanwhile living in a more restrictive environment about love and sexuality.
In Pakistan, this new phenomenon of phones was integrated into the system of arranged marriages. Phones gave women the opportunity to integrate ideas of romance within the relationship with their future spouse. For example, after getting a phone from their
husbands after the nikah, the marriage contract, they will stay in touch with each other by sending messages and pictures. The nikah is not always directly followed by the shadi, the social marriage celebration, so the phones give them a way to contact each other before the
shadi.95 In the article of Bowen, Green and James mobile phones are used by young adults
to have a love relationship which is not inside a marriage perspective. So, as seen by comparing these two settings, mobile phones have great impact on love relations and sexuality, but in different ways in different communities.
So, love and sexuality are not integrated in the same way in every society and need to be interpreted in local contexts.96 These concepts intertwine with the political environment,
globalization, social movements and technological changes. This research focusses on family and religion, but all the aspects named in this chapter will be kept in mind as possibly
affecting premarital love and sexuality, religious ties and family ties among Shia students.
93 Walter, Anna‐Maria, "Love at Your Fingertips." German Research 38, no.2 (2016): 6-11.
94 Donna Lee Bowen, Alexia Green and Christiaan James, “Globalization, mobile phones and forbidden
romance in Morocco.” The Journal of North African Studies 13 (2008): 238.
95 Walter, “Love at Your Fingertips." 9-10. 96 Ibidem.
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3. Religiosity, love and sexuality
“People are going non-religious here. You have no idea. Many women who wear the hijab here are forced to by their parents” Husseyn (20 yeasrs old).
It was an unexpected result that many informants did not follow the same ideas about religion as their parents, even though they described themselves as Shia. This description was more related to descendancy. Many informants informed me at the beginning of interviews that they were Shia, but not religious. When I first heard this, I did not know how to respond on this since I was planning to do my research with students from within the Shia religion and the effects of religion on love and sexuality. But in the end, I found out that this too is a result, and I should not neglect these students. Religiosity is an essential aspect of this research because it has not only significant influence on the data on religion but also on the data considering love and sexuality. Religiosity has also an effect on the relationship with the nuclear family, but this will be more widely elaborated in the next chapter.
This chapter will focus on religiosity and the effects on love and sexuality among students. Firstly, the religiosity of the informants will be elaborated. Secondly, ideas and general experiences of love of the students will be examined. Thirdly, the relation students see between religion and love will be explored. The fourth paragraph is dedicated to ideas of mut’a marriages since this religious phenomenon affected students’ experiences and ideas of love and sexuality.
3.1 Changing Religiosities
Choosing a different vision of religion than their parents, was a prevalent matter for the students in my research. Eleven out of nineteen informants had formed entirely different religious beliefs than their parents. This change will now be more widely explored and described for female and male students separately.
From the ten female informants, five women had different beliefs from their parents. Imane became an atheist. Her parents were very shocked when they heard this news. Sukaina described herself as a deist, which meant that she believes in God but does not follow a religion. Ghada and Nour had similar ideas but did not call these deism. Nour wore
