Males' trust and mistrust of females in Muslim matrimonial sites
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-06-2013-0012 |
| Date | 12 August 2013 |
| Pages | 174-192 |
| Published date | 12 August 2013 |
| Author | Yeslam Al-Saggaf |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
Males’ trust
and mistrust of females
in Muslim matrimonial sites
Yeslam Al-Saggaf
Charles Stuart University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine interpersonal trust in Muslim matrimonial sites
(MMS) from a male perspective. Specifically how users perceive interpersonal trust in MMS; what are
the signs of lack of trust in MMS (if any); and what strategies do users adopt to handle the lack of trust
in MMS.
Design/methodology/approach – This empirical qualitative study used ethnographic techniques
to collect data. In addition to briefly observing five MMS, the study conducted semi-structured
interviews with ten participants, who were all males, between the ages of 25-35, and residing in
different locations, including the USA, the UK, the UAE, Australia and Bahrain. While the interviews
focused on participants’ experience in MMS, the analysis of these interviews focused on the issue of
trust in these sites.
Findings – The analysis has revealed that participants associated trust with “risk taking”, “reliance”
on one’s abilities, “self-confidence” and honesty with the first three being the major themes that
transpired from the analysis of data. The analysis has also revealed three signs of lack of trust in
MMS. Users expressed concern over a large number of members’ profiles being fake; they appeared
suspicious about these sites and approached them with caution and felt intimidated by the unrealistic
expectations members placed on them. However, it was found users adopted several strategies to
handle the lack of trust in MMS including using their communication skills to study others carefully,
doing “police work” to uncover any inconsistencies in their statements, “interrogating” them using a
pre-developed list of questions and involving their family members in their negotiations.
Originality/value – Despite MMS immense popularity within the Islamic world, with the exception
of a few articles, there are not many articles available in the academic literature on them. This article
seeks to address this imbalance.
Keywords Trust, Communication technologies,Computer ethics, Dating sites, Matchmakingsites,
Matrimonialsites
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
A recent Google search revealed that there are hundreds of thousands of matrim onial
sites that specialize in assisting singles with finding partners. Ever since they appeared
more than two decades ago, their popularity has continued to grow with many
matrimonial sites having millions of members each (Ahmed, 2013, p. 12). Matrimonial
sites’ popularity is principally owed to the “shopping effect” they are able to create in
the minds of users, which is the perception that there is a huge amount of potential
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
The author wishes to thank Reema Hussain (Effat University, Saudi Arabia), who collected the
data for this study, for doing an excellent job at conducting the interviews and Adrian Bunn
(Charles Sturt University, Australia) for his contribution to the literature review of the article and
also for proofreading an earlier draft of the article.
Received 4 June 2013
Revised 30 July 2013
Accepted 30 July 2013
Journal of Information,
Communication and Ethics in Society
Vol. 11 No. 3, 2013
pp. 174-192
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-06-2013-0012
JICES
11,3
174
partners out there (Jha and Adelman, 2009, p. 6). By being able to change the
requirements that one is looking for, deceives members into thinking that ther e is an
endless number of spouses available to choose from. Clearly this is not true since a site
that has a 1,000 members will continue to have a 1,000 members, regardless of the
different members being displayed when search requirements are changed.
Matrimonial sites have attracted considerable academic attention (Shako’s (2004)
study on South Asian matrimonial sites and Jha and Adelman’s (2009) and Pal’s (2011)
studies on Indian matrimonial sites.
Despite their immense popularity within the Islamic world, with the exception of
a few articles, such as Bunt (2004), Lo and Aziz (2009) and Ahmed (2013), there are not
many articles available in the academic literature on Muslim matrimonial sites
(hereafter MMS). This article seeks to address this imbalance, by focussing on MMS.
Specifically, the article will examine interpersonal trust in these online environments,
another area in which research is scarce.
Indeed, much of the research on online trust has been devoted to studying the
relationship between users and web sites or other online services, that is, users’ trust in
the technology (Bailey et al., 2003; Beldad et al., 2010; Bouwhuis, 2006; Kracher et al.,
2005; Friedman et al., 2000; Mukherjee and Nath, 2007; Wang and Emurian, 2005). Few
studies, by comparison, have concentrated purely on the issue of trust between users,
or interpersonal trust online. Lankton and McKnight (2011, pp. 32-54), for example,
who investigated whether interpersonal trust beliefs are, in fact, separate and distinct
from users trust in the technology (e.g. social networking sites (SNS)) did not focus
exclusively on the issue of trust between people online.
Moreover, to the researchers’ knowledge, no empirical analysis of interpersonal
trust in MMS or matrimonial sites in general has been undertaken to date. Given the
similarity between matrimonial sites and other online environments, such as dating
and matchmaking sites, examining interpersonal trust in MMS can make a significant
contribution to a growing body of empirical research on trust in online environments.
The aim of this study is to examine interpersonal trust in MMS from a male
perspective. Specifically:
RQ1. How male users perceive interpersonal trust in MMS?
RQ2. What are the signs of lack of trust in MMS (if any)?
RQ3. What strategies do they adopt to handle the lack of trust in MMS?
To achieve this aim, an empirical qualitative study that used ethnographic techniques
to collect data was carried out. In addition to observing five random MMS, ten
semi-structured interviews with male members from two different MMS were
conducted. The article is organised as follows. First, MMS are briefly discussed. Second,
relevant work on the notion of trust, trust online and interpersonal trust is rev iewed.
Third, the methodological aspects of the empirical study are explained in detail, while
the results are dealt with next. Finally, the contribution of this paper to the knowledge
about interpersonal trust in online environments is discussed in the conclusion.
2. MMS
Marriage in the Islamic culture is an inevitable part of life and equates to half of one’s
faith (Ahmed, 2013, p. 7). Before the arrival of the internet and before the mass exodus
Males’ trust
of females
in MMS
175
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