Belle Al-iyahya is a young Egyptian woman who was married to a prominent business magnate and retired to live in anonymity in an Arabic country village. This is quite a usual practice for women of her generation and age who choose to marry a well-known person from a high status family at a young age so that they have no personal identity. Belle chose to marry a man who was already wealthy and prominent and with an age difference of 17 years. They were given the choice of being called wives or partners in marriage from their families of both countries. Belle chose to be called Belle as she felt that she was given the opportunity to choose. However, the implications of the title Belle were greatly exploited by her new husbands.
The title Belle Al-yahya signifies that she is of Arabic origin and the stipulation is for a woman to be referred to only by her nationality, without reference to her nationality or race. This could give rise to many conflicts and misunderstandings with her new husbands. They repeatedly called her Belle while at times she felt that it was proper for them to call her Hussein. Even after she had fully embraced her true identity as Egyptian she still experienced problems related to her new status and identity. The first major issue to arise was about her age difference which was technically incorrect according to Egyptian law. As a compromise, they set up another marriage ceremony between her husband with the stipulation that he should annul the marriage before she achieved majority.
After this she moved away from her husband and lived in anonymity for the next 15 years until she reached the age of 70. The stipulations of the marriage contract stated that after she achieved 70 years of age any sexual intercourse with her husband’s associates was prohibited except in those cases when one of the spouses was not a UAE national. This stipulation made it difficult for her to remarry as her new husbands refused to allow it. It is clear from this example that not all marriages run smoothly and especially if there is a gender imbalance at play it can cause major difficulties with obtaining the right status and citizenship.