The men, we meet in our lives, are fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, class mates, colleagues at work, or bosses. Of all the possible men we meet, there always remains a man we imagine, we dream of, we yearn for, to be our husband – our Egyptian husband. Why Egyptian husband, because we were brought up, to not think of anyone else but an Egyptian man, as our husbands. They might not be the best possible men in the world, they are mostly spoilt, demanding and rely too much on the woman to be more than a woman and to be an assistant to him as if she is a male friend in his life. However, it is mostly from among them, which we must marry.
Having said that, we (Egyptian females) can dream of the ideal characteristics, which an Egyptian husband should have – our ideal Egyptian husband.
For starters, our Egyptian husband, should be very tender, should have a soft heart, and he should be extremely gentle with us. You should be there for us when we need your arms, and when we need kind words. Yet, we also expect you to be tough enough to protect us, to fight anyone who tries to do us any harm. We do not expect you to sit and watch on the sidewalks, if we are attacked, just because you are scared. Soft heart culturally in Egypt is mistaken for a coward, well, that is definitely what we don’t’ mean nor want. Since we are Egyptian, try to remember Rushdi Abaza in the movie Tamr Henna, yes, someone like that, only a little less rough.
In terms of generosity, well, you have to be super generous in your feelings, time and money. Yes, this is what we want – someone who is very giving in every sense of the word, someone who will not hold back or is cautious. When it comes to feelings, yes we realize you are men, and we are women, and there are differences in the way we handle our emotions, and express them. However, we know, that only the most confident and strongest of men, are those who are capable of expressing their feelings and showing them, they are usually the more stable husbands to be. In terms of time, we know that work is a priority, and work is what you need to do to provide for us, nonetheless, we expect you to make time for us, put an effort to be with us, and your children to be. Work is the means, and not the end, for one to achieve a happy life. As for money, well, money is another issue. Money is also a means not an end, so we expect you to give us without thought, or questioning, after all you are supposedly working to make us happy. This inherently means, you are not to lie about your salary, hide money from us, or put restrictions on how much money we spend. Should we find you generous with us to a fault, this will naturally make us feel responsible and feel bad, should we not spend wisely. If you treat us as if we are children, we will definitely behave this way. Now, saying we want you, our husbands to be generous, does not mean we want you to be dumb about making or spending your money. We want you to love us, and spend time with us, but we don’t want you to quit your jobs, and stay home with us. As for the money, if you are not wise about spending your money, you will not be a role model for us, and as a result, in the long term we will end up being poor, and if we become poor, this opens the door for problems, since this will not be what we both have been used to.
Our Egyptian husband that we all yearn for, has to be straight, meaning he has to like women, and not be interested in men naturally. He has to appreciate women, but only interested in being with one woman; his wife. Having said that, we expect you to appreciate art, beauty, and elegance, but, this is limited to nature, home décor, furniture and both your clothes and that of your wife, not anyone or anything else.
Hygiene, which is usually an issue, among some men- well, we expect our Egyptian husband, to be perfectly clean, to smell great, dress well (even if you have bad taste, we will choose your clothes for you, and dress you). You have to take care of your nails, your hair and trim your beard or your mustache. The most important thing of all to remember is to use deodorant. Now with that being said, we do not want you to go over board and be anal about it, and drive us nuts, and be a cleanliness freak. Everything in moderation is good.
Last but not least, we want our Egyptian husband to be independent, strong and reliable, yet he is emotionally dependant on his wife. In his wife’s arms, he is nothing but a big baby.
All of this could be too much to ask for, but we women are entitled to dream, and accept a little bit less, like everyone else, right?!