Traditions

Just in case you don't know, I'm from Iraq--I had to say this 'cause this post is all about traditions so it helps to know what traditions I'm talking about.

I left Iraq 3 years ago, came here, studied in the Philippine school for 1 year before joining college at the age of 16.

During that one year, I learned a lot of traditions and since I'm open-minded I adopted with them and accepted them easily.

Last week I was chatting with my Iraqi friend and I was surprised to hear her say that in our traditions a girl isn't allowed to date a guy until they're engaged!

I never knew this before, really!

Engagement isn't just the guy proposing to the girl; the guy's family goes to the girl's family and propose.

I've heard people say "(some guy) proposed to this girl and she and/or her family rejected him" and I think to myself "how could (some guy) and that girl know each other before?".

It wasn't until now that I knew what really goes on: they propose THEN they get to know each other.

It's stupid! A couple should get to know each other first BEFORE getting serious...

If they break up even before getting married, people will say "They disagreed", well, none said they will agree!

Traditions are useless; they were started years and years ago and they can be wrong, bad, harmful, useless, etc...

It's not like they're based on any scientific facts or any thing that backs them up, they're just started by people because they think something's good or bad.