Finding the right mate

According to the 2009 national survey of Egyptian youth, the biggest differences between men and women in what they say they’re looking for in a spouse revolve around looks and personality, where a quarter of men valued a pretty wife (but less than 10% of women were looking for a handsome husband). These proportions were reversed when it came to “strong personality” and “respectable job”. For all the economic hurdles to marriage, youth were surprisingly unmaterialistic in their choice of mate: less than 15% of women were looking for a rich spouse, or even one with his own apartment. Similar patterns have been observed in Jordan and Kuwait.