Relationship with an Assyrian

il duce

New member
Hi everyone, I'm new here and very curious about Assyrians customs and culture (Chaldean). My primary reason is because I'm currently in a relationship with an Assyrian.

I'm a young man in his early 20's with an Italian background. Not long ago (couple of months) i met this beautiful Assyrian girl who i fell in love with. She equally feels the same way for me. I met her family and they like me a lot and its the same thing in regards to my family with her. However, things are worrying. One thing is notice is that among Assyrians, women have expectations to get married as soon as they reach adulthood and it generally involves a man asking for her hand. Males on the other hand can wait til later (mid to later 20's). One day i went to her house to pick her up for a small night out for a coffee, but was confronted by the parents. They informed me that the fact she is out with me could possibly make her look like a loose woman, if not a slut because in their culture they don't believe in girlfriends and boyfriends. I can see how they take it very seriously because when I'm out with her and a member of the Assyrian community spots her, he/she gives her a bad look. The parents told me, if people are together they should get married, simple as that. They suggested i should do some custom where it's like a 'declaration of a relationship' and it has family members who witness it. They suggested it because it would be good for the family and her reputation. Problem is that they claim its part of the road to marriage. I can see the potential, but I don't feel ready for such a massive commitment yet and this goes for any girl. I'm too young for this, I just started my career and i need time. Not only that, but my own family are very suspicious about the whole thing and don't want me to be heavily committed yet. They know little about Assyrian customs.

I registered in this forum to get a greater understanding about Assyrian culture so it can help me take the right course of action in my relationship. Please tell me how Assyrians view relationships.
 
il duce said:
..... but was confronted by the parents. They informed me that the fact she is out with me could possibly make her look like a loose woman, if not a slut because in their culture they don't believe in girlfriends and boyfriends. I can see how they take it very seriously because when I'm out with her and a member of the Assyrian community spots her, he/she gives her a bad look.

I registered in this forum to get a greater understanding about Assyrian culture so it can help me take the right course of action in my relationship. Please tell me how Assyrians view relationships.
the reason for this is because most Assyrians are endogamous, aka we marry/date Assyrians; the reason why is because we have an endangered language and culture.

I view relationships as overrated, We Assyrians have our own system of Arranged marriage, where the "declaration of a relationship" is when the arranged couple "date" for a little while then Marry. Relationships of love are fine and whatnot, but the Western customs are too perverted and sexual that women don't plan on getting married at all.
 
mrzurnaci said:
the reason for this is because most Assyrians are endogamous, aka we marry/date Assyrians; the reason why is because we have an endangered language and culture.

I view relationships as overrated, We Assyrians have our own system of Arranged marriage, where the "declaration of a relationship" is when the arranged couple "date" for a little while then Marry. Relationships of love are fine and whatnot, but the Western customs are too perverted and sexual that women don't plan on getting married at all.

lol..Do you still live in Hakkari?
 
Your girlfriend's family are backwards and idiotic.  If you truly love this girl, stay with her and get her away from them.  I don't know anyone who thinks this stupidly anymore.  You have to ask for her hand to get a freakin cup of coffee?!  Please.  

mrzurnaci said:
the reason for this is because most Assyrians are endogamous, aka we marry/date Assyrians; the reason why is because we have an endangered language and culture.

I view relationships as overrated, We Assyrians have our own system of Arranged marriage, where the "declaration of a relationship" is when the arranged couple "date" for a little while then Marry. Relationships of love are fine and whatnot, but the Western customs are too perverted and sexual that women don't plan on getting married at all.

Are you for real?  Women today simply don't want to settle, especially if their only options are some neanderthal who wants a maid he can screw on a regular basis.  
 
Be happy that she is assyrian, better women are hard to find...
baklawa said:
Are you for real?  Women today simply don't want to settle, especially if their only options are some neanderthal who wants a maid he can screw on a regular basis.  
common baklawa not every girl today is like that, there are still at least 20% left that keep our traditions ahah :D but i agree with you that most of our assyrian men are DIICKHEADS with an arab brain only thinking of sex and no respect for our beautiful assyrian women... What has happened today, why even many assyrian women are becoming "loose" is because our assyrian guys that want to have 100 women and later want to marry a virgin...


Back to you, my assyrian woman loving friend
Today most men are stupid and are diickheads, especially the young men of us Assyrians that don?t respect our culture and history, they don?t care about anything and just go around and party and screw girls...

If this girl likes you and has let you in into her life, and even let you go so far that she wants to be with you, then I don see a problem with you guys... IF she wants you she can tell her parents that and if they are not stupid like old fashioned ("Arab")Assyrians that protect their women  and daughters and forget about their sons and what they do, then you should have no problems...

If a Assyrian girl just wants Assyrian men then she wont let anyone else from another nationality into her life. SO feel lucky my friend, you guys want to be together and that is something that nobody can change...
But if she is a traditional Assyrian that want to keep her culture and so, then you will have to commit, since she will probably do it, and forget about being together just for fun, and later maybe end up breaking up, a serious Assyrian woman wont do something like that...
And remember first marriage and then sex hahaha, sorry man but i had to tell you that, Assyrian people (cultural ones, and not the "Arab? influenced Assyrians) always want to wait until after marriage, even if it takes years sometimes...
 
hey hey hey, comon, not all of our men are like You describe it, so keep cool here, please.
I know I cannot speak for Assyrian men outside of Europe, and it seems to me too that most Assyrian men are bad to their wifes but it is not the absolutely majority. There are many Assyrian men who are good to their wifes.
And I see it is especially the younger generation of Assyrian men who are good to their wifes, regardless whether they care about their culture or not.
shlome
 
John_86 said:
hey hey hey, comon, not all of our men are like You describe it, so keep cool here, please.
I know I cannot speak for Assyrian men outside of Europe, and it seems to me too that most Assyrian men are bad to their wifes but it is not the absolutely majority. There are many Assyrian men who are good to their wifes.
And I see it is especially the younger generation of Assyrian men who are good to their wifes, regardless whether they care about their culture or not.
shlome
I am not saying all of them john :D i said most of them :D of course there are good ones, i bet many of us here on AVN are good :p but speaking of my experiance in sweden, many of them are bad, non caring and sometimes bad to women...
 
I don't think the poster's question was about Assyrian men, but about dating customs.  He seems to be dating a girl whose family thinks she must be engaged to go out for a simple cup of coffee.  I know many girls (myself included) who come from very traditional families, but also reject this sort of primitive mentality.  If this girl agrees with her family that this guy needs to officially come ask for her hand before she continues to date him, then I'd be very concerned if I were this young man's parents.  Anyone that desperate to get married must have red flags flying everywhere.  People should get married because they share a deep love and bond, and are emotionally ready for such a committment, and mature enough to live independently.  Getting engaged so a bunch of FOBs won't say you're a slut is not a good reason.
 
Our culture has a lot of rules when it comes to dating/marriage etc. But as baklawa stayed it all depends on the family, the girl and the way she wants to do things.
A mashmeta: it's sort of a promise ring to her parents that you have pure intentions with this girl to date her and not just for messing around. It usually lasts years or months depending on if the relationship lasts. Lol

Engagement: self explanitory. Most times the man the girls father for her hand. Then either asks her on his own or in front of everyone.

Marriage: well when you get here. It's all on your own and should have already learned the culture by then.

And please ignore comments like mrzurnaci which are very old school.

A lot of assyrians marry outside of the culture and the family will eventually approve the person as opposed to the culture they are from. IMO however you are doing a great job learning and trying to in understand what to do.

Good luck.
 
This is a pretty unnecessary thread in my eyes. If you love the girl, date her and engage with her. If you do not, leave her and spare yourself the headache of a woman in love with the wrong man.
 
Il duce: you need to be more active in your topic its about to go crazy.

Hanuni: marriage isn't a joke. And proposing to her will do nothing if he is not ready for marriage. And love doesn't always equal a great long lasting relationship it requires more things.IMO
 
baklawa said:
I don't think the poster's question was about Assyrian men, but about dating customs.  He seems to be dating a girl whose family thinks she must be engaged to go out for a simple cup of coffee.  I know many girls (myself included) who come from very traditional families, but also reject this sort of primitive mentality.  If this girl agrees with her family that this guy needs to officially come ask for her hand before she continues to date him, then I'd be very concerned if I were this young man's parents.  Anyone that desperate to get married must have red flags flying everywhere.  People should get married because they share a deep love and bond, and are emotionally ready for such a committment, and mature enough to live independently.  Getting engaged so a bunch of FOBs won't say you're a slut is not a good reason.
I wonder if you all know that the Assyrian system of arranged marriage is actually what's keeping the nation alive? people in arranged marriages develop love overtime just like a regular relationship, all relationships, whether arranged or built are all the same. And don't forget, if Assyrians don't marry Assyrians then we'll be extinct and the Kurds will be using our flags to wipe their counter-tops and asses, make diamonds out of our bodies by extracting our bodies supply of carbon. Also let's not forget our language, in the U.S. Assyrians lose their language by the 2nd generation of people living in U.S. and our language is already endangered..... will you guys think about your people and not your self?
 
mrzurnaci said:
I wonder if you all know that the Assyrian system of arranged marriage is actually what's keeping the nation alive? people in arranged marriages develop love overtime just like a regular relationship, all relationships, whether arranged or built are all the same. And don't forget, if Assyrians don't marry Assyrians then we'll be extinct and the Kurds will be using our flags to wipe their countertops and asses, make diamonds out of our bodies by extracting our bodies supply of carbon.

Um, no, that is a completely moronic statement.  What's keeping this nation alive are our people who remain on our lands back home despite continued harrassment and pressure to leave.  It is the schools that AAS builds that teach a curriculum that is 100% in our language.  It is a handful of people on the ground in the homeland that are fighting for our rights on a daily basis even though they and their families have had their lives threatened. 

Arranged marriages are only done by parents with more regard for what "nasheh" think than the general well-being of their children.  Of the many aunts that I have, only one had an arranged marriage and both she and her husband were miserable till the bitter end.  And of course they remained together until the end because with people of such a mentality, divorce is not an option.  Life is too short for such nonsense. 

I married the person I loved (who is also Assyrian.)  I did it despite the fact that I grew up in a traditional household where dating was not an option.  But as the saying goes, where there's a will, there's a way  :devil:  I realized early on in life that my parents views did not mesh with mine and I did what I had to do without (1) killing myself, or (2) killing them.  If this girl truly cares for this guy, she could have found a way to see him without putting him in such a predicament that he would have to proprose marriage.  That is unfair to this man and his family, and tells me that if this girl is not mature enough to assert herself to her parents, then she has no business getting married.
 
baklawa said:
That is unfair to this man and his family, and tells me that if this girl is not mature enough to assert herself to her parents, then she has no business getting married.
I agree with you there baklawa...
 
baklawa said:
Arranged marriages are only done by parents with more regard for what "nasheh" think than the general well-being of their children.  Of the many aunts that I have, only one had an arranged marriage and both she and her husband were miserable till the bitter end.  And of course they remained together until the end because with people of such a mentality, divorce is not an option.  Life is too short for such nonsense.  
so only ONE aunt experienced misery, my parents are arranged marriage and they aren't miserable, how can I tell? they got 5 kids (including me) and they were about to have more. Like I said ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE SAME. Not all of them will be good, and YES divorce IS an option, my uncle did to his arranged married wife.
 
mrzurnaci said:
so only ONE aunt experienced misery, my parents are arranged marriage and they aren't miserable, how can I tell? they got 5 kids (including me) and they were about to have more. Like I said ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE SAME. Not all of them will be good, and YES divorce IS an option, my uncle did to his arranged married wife.

That I'm even having a conversation about arranged marriages in this day and age is mind-boggling.  Arranged marriages are sexist in nature; they are done to marry off the girl as soon as they can so they don't have to worry about her doing anything foolish like live her own life.  As to the guy....who cares?  As long as his family has money, it doesn't matter.  I've seen it a dozen times now with these guys who couldn't get a girl here, so they have their parents ship over a girl from a village in Khabour.  One prebuscent virgin please!

If you want an arranged marriage, more power to you.  I just bristle when parents like those of this girl subscribe to the mentality that a girl who goes out with a guy without being engaged is a slut.  We need to evolve from this ridiculously misogynist mentality.  It's that kind of thinking that puts women in hijabs.
 
baklawa said:
I just bristle when parents like those of this girl subscribe to the mentality that a girl who goes out with a guy without being engaged is a slut.  We need to evolve from this ridiculously misogynist mentality.  It's that kind of thinking that puts women in hijabs.
Yeah i am really tierd of that too, some Assyrians still live as if they where among muslims yet the ones who talk about others are the worst ones, they are the ones that do the worst things... It is damn hard today for an Assyrian guy who is serious to date a girl, becase of what people might say about her and because her parants might think that others will talk about her, they are damn stupid old farmers the people who think like this...
I hate the fact that we Assyrians have got so much of our mentality from muslims, of course our goal should be to preserve our culture and history by trying to marry Assyrian, but to have the same mentality, towards girls and how to meet with the opposite sex, as the muslims do, really pisses me off.
All this old thinking must go away...

 
Assessment is required to analyse our current status; our social and communal environment and our traditions.

Derived from the above, we can adapt to our extant environment with our traditions and sometimes backward nature.

Not all of the relationship do's and dont's in our culture are right, neither are the approaches of the environments we live in. We must assess our culture and our environment and find a reasonable approach to protect the two people in a relationship, while at the same time, providing them with enough trust and freedom to explore their love.
 
baklawa said:
Um, no, that is a completely moronic statement.  What's keeping this nation alive are our people who remain on our lands back home despite continued harrassment and pressure to leave.  It is the schools that AAS builds that teach a curriculum that is 100% in our language.  It is a handful of people on the ground in the homeland that are fighting for our rights on a daily basis even though they and their families have had their lives threatened.  ...

This is just 50% true. The diaspora-Assyrians are very important for the future of our people, too. Most of our people live in the diaspora and many of our people who live in Assyria want to flee in western states.
As far as I know if there would not be the Assyrians in the USA Zowaa would not exist. Or think about all the work of Assyrian Aid Society or Assyrians Without Borders, about ISDP and ACE, about Seyfo Center, about the Assyrian schools in the diaspora and so on.

True, arranged marriages are not so good. But we have to be aware that we speak here about arranged marriages under Assyrians, not Muslim arranged marriages.
In the arranged marriages under Assyrians the girl and boy can choose whether they want or not.
And mrzurnaci is right by saying "people in arranged marriages develop love overtime." This is possible, especially if the boy and the girl are still teenager. Every teenager develops him/herself during the years, like a flower. And during this time of developing there is the possibility that both "flowers" grow with each other into one another.
There are many couples who had such kind of developing during their marriage.
shlome
 
John_86 said:
This is just 50% true. The diaspora-Assyrians are very important for the future of our people, too. Most of our people live in the diaspora and many of our people who live in Assyria want to flee in western states.
As far as I know if there would not be the Assyrians in the USA Zowaa would not exist. Or think about all the work of Assyrian Aid Society or Assyrians Without Borders, about ISDP and ACE, about Seyfo Center, about the Assyrian schools in the diaspora and so on.

True, arranged marriages are not so good. But we have to be aware that we speak here about arranged marriages under Assyrians, not Muslim arranged marriages.
In the arranged marriages under Assyrians the girl and boy can choose whether they want or not.
And mrzurnaci is right by saying "people in arranged marriages develop love overtime." This is possible, especially if the boy and the girl are still teenager. Every teenager develops him/herself during the years, like a flower. And during this time of developing there is the possibility that both "flowers" grow with each other into one another.
There are many couples who had such kind of developing during their marriage.
shlome

THANK YOU!
and don't forget, arranged marriages have been around BEFORE Islam, and don't forget that Muslims are very influential to Assyrians as they hold higher political power than us, but that will soon change >=D
 
Woah! thanks for the replies people. Thanks for your answers because they help a lot.

One thing for sure is i can relate the customs and ides to my grandparents. Italians were not so different back then. Anyway, just to clarify, I don't see this girl as a mere 'girlfriend' and feel there is potential for more. Her family wants the mashmeta and they constantly reassured me this is not an engagement. If it's purely that, I am very happy to carry on with it. I want time to make such a big leap into engagement. My girlfriend is very happy with it and said she can wait for years if needed, I hope the family will feel the same.

Again thanks.
 
il duce said:
Woah! thanks for the replies people. Thanks for your answers because they help a lot.

One thing for sure is i can relate the customs and ides to my grandparents. Italians were not so different back then. Anyway, just to clarify, I don't see this girl as a mere 'girlfriend' and feel there is potential for more. Her family wants the mashmeta and they constantly reassured me this is not an engagement. If it's purely that, I am very happy to carry on with it. I want time to make such a big leap into engagement. My girlfriend is very happy with it and said she can wait for years if needed, I hope the family will feel the same.

Again thanks.
no prob, IF you have kids, have them learn Assyrian from their mom, you don't have to it's just that the Assyrian language is on the endangered list as we only have 200,000+ native speakers
 
mrzurnaci said:
THANK YOU!
and don't forget, arranged marriages have been around BEFORE Islam, and don't forget that Muslims are very influential to Assyrians as they hold higher political power than us, but that will soon change >=D
To be honest I like some arranged marriages, we just have to remember that there is a difference between arranged marriages and forced marriages(muslim like). Much of our people got married with arranged marriages and it is very good, since most of those couple who got arrange are people that are known to both families they are getting married to, its a safe marriage. If both parents of the couples are happy then the couple will have less future problems, it is the same when it is a arranged marriage where you marry someone that is very well known to the family, it feels safe, you have some kind of trust from before?

However the couples can be arranged or ?recommended? as It actually is, by their parents, but the couple should always have the option to say no or to wait and get to know the person better. Also I guy who has been a slut in his country and then tells his parents that he wants to marry a girl from the homelands because he can?t find one where he is, he is just pathetic and disgusting?

So yes arranged marriages are sometimes better, and last longer, then marriages that are purely of love? I believe that love will come and go in relationship, and if both sides always want it to work then it can last forever?
 
the_dave said:
To be honest I like some arranged marriages, we just have to remember that there is a difference between arranged marriages and forced marriages(muslim like). Much of our people got married with arranged marriages and it is very good, since most of those couple who got arrange are people that are known to both families they are getting married to, its a safe marriage. If both parents of the couples are happy then the couple will have less future problems, it is the same when it is a arranged marriage where you marry someone that is very well known to the family, it feels safe, you have some kind of trust from before?
Thank you! I hate how these Westies are bashing down the Assyrian style of arranged marriage, when it's in fact their culture and should be embracing it.
 
Arranged marriages are crazy and should not happen. I don't care if it keeps the people alive. You should be in love and happy when you marry someone.
 
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