RIYADH, 6 December 2007 — A Saudi man took advantage of the high demand for misyar brides and duped three men out of more than SR75,000, the daily Al-Riyadh reported yesterday.

In Saudi Arabia, misyar works like this: A woman basically agrees in a binding Islamic marriage contract to be set up with certain material provisions (an apartment, a car, etc.) in exchange for living with a married man. She may also forgo any pre-nuptial demands, but since she doesn’t get a dowry or access to other material support she usually asks for something. Usually the more attractive and younger the woman, the more leverage she has in getting material positions.

In this case, three different men asked the man for his daughter’s hand in marriage. But instead of approving one prospective groom, the man accepted all three proposals and also collected a total of SR75,000 in dowry from the wannabe husbands. After he had the money, the man fled to an unknown location and conveniently changed all of his contact numbers.

As the days passed without a word from the father of the bride, the men went to his house. After waiting for hours for the man to show up, the three Romeos who were at first too shy to reveal the reason behind their visit, eventually told each other their sob stories. They were surprised to learn they had all been duped in the same manner: the “father” approached them at their local mosque where he prayed every day and expressed his desire to marry his daughter off even to someone looking for a misyar marriage. All three men came to the conclusion that had they seen the daughter before giving the dowry money, they would not be in this predicament.

They reluctantly filed a police report against the man and his daughter, and were further shocked when a police investigation revealed the man was single and did not have any children.