SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – There is an old Kurdish saying that goes, “rich men either kill or marry.” But these days, many men in the Garmiyan region, whether rich or poor, are taking second wives, and many of them are turning to the Arab areas to find their new partners.
A number of sources from the area spoke on this issue to Rudaw on the condition of anonymity. The older Kurdish men justify marrying Arab women on the basis that their wives are no longer able to maintain a husband-wife relationship.
The son of one of these men, whose father has not only married an Arab woman, but also finds matches for other marriage-seeking men, said that there is no legal or social justification for their behavior.
“The real issue is that these men have money and Arab women marry them without a second thought,” he said.
It seems that these old Kurdish men can easily find these girls due to poverty in the Arab towns where many would also want to escape the security instability of their areas.
Halgurd Ali, a lawyer in Sulaimani, said that because it is not easy for men to marry a second wife in Kurdish courts, these men go to Khanaqin or Diyala.
The phenomenon of marrying Arab women has increased since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. The same year, there were a number of matchmakers in the Choman district of Erbil who found Arab women for older Kurdish men to marry.
Haji Sabeer, a resident of Sayid Sadiq near Halabja, was a government employee until July. On the day of his retirement, Haji Sabeer married a 26-years-old Arab woman from Sharaban north of Baquba.
The new wife is younger than Sabeer’s own 12 children.
Saeed, the pseudonym of a man in Garmiyan who has found a number of Arab wives for Kurdish men, told Rudaw, “I have faced many problems for finding wives for these men. Several times, I have been threatened by the family of men for whom I found wives. That is why I have stopped finding matches.”
Saeed told the story of a man from Kalar, who lived in Sweden for 20 years before returning to Kurdistan, and asked him to find an Arab girl no matter what the price because the man was “old and bald.”
“He asked for the hand of many Kurdish ladies, but no one agreed to marry him,” Saeed said. “But there were Arab ladies who would marry him.”
According to Saeed, the reason that young Arab women accept proposals from older Kurdish men is that the families in Arab areas are generally low-income and not many marriages occur among them.
“Kurdish men are willing to pay a large amount of money, and because the Arab ladies are usually the second wife, the Kurdish men pay more attention to them and respect them more. Therefore, when these women return to their hometowns, they encourage their friends to marry Kurdish men,” Saeed said.
The son of a man who married an Arab woman said that his stepmother brought a picture of one of her friends back after visiting her hometown in the hope of finding her a husband in Kurdistan.
“She is very happy here,” the man said of his stepmother. “She has been rescued from a miserable life in her hometown. That is why her friends seek a similar life here in Kurdistan.”
However, not all the marriages end happily. For example, Mahmood, a man from Sayid Sadiq, was robbed by his Arab wife. He still has hopes of finding her. She took all his money and gold.
Saeed insisted that the women he found were all reputable ladies from known families.
“The women I find are not the kind who would rob. Those who find their wives in the marketplace are the ones who get robbed,” he said.
http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/5211.html
. Considering the amount of money it cost to marry a Kurdish girl , it is only natural to turn to the arab region and the above article apply to young kurdish men too who are close to arab region . 
