David Gerard, Not that there's anything wrong with that! Options

(now that you mention it...)

DL: My other half's family are Muslim (except for said other half) and don't believe in the hijab/burqa/etc (even as Muslims, they believe these are oppressive - though that may not be the word they'd use).

So as you said, mores vary from country to country or from person to person.

Hm. Less so person to person there. People get defined by their families much in the ME, and breaking away is a billion times harder. Not the case with your other half, it sounds like, but they emigrated (I assume you live not in the ME, or other muslim intensive country). That probably gave him a leghold out of the tight social controls.

My biggest experiences are with the locals in country, so Ive seen the home country application.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Tue 20th November 2007, 5:01am

They're from Lebanon, and they did emigrate here when the other half was quite young. The parents have the fairly conservative mindset, the kids a lot less so.

Good assumption! :-)

Oh, the Lebanese are another former French colony, and were very modern until the war in the 1980s. Even today, they are not big into hijab, as a general rule. They are more flexible.

Oh, the Lebanese are another former French colony, and were very modern until the war in the 1980s. Even today, they are not big into hijab, as a general rule. They are more flexible.

The Lebanese are pretty liberal, yes.

I have noticed an interesting thing about women in veils, doing grocery shopping in Europe. You see couples where the woman is veiled and the man is wearing jeans, a baseball cap and Nike shoes. In variably, in this kind of couple, when they get to the checkout to pay, it's the woman who gets out her credit card. I can't remember ever seeing the man paying when you see these couples. It would seem that the veiled woman has control over the family finances.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but it's obviously not always the man who insists on the veils The veils do seem to have some sort of power attached to them as well. It's rather interesting, really.