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I was recently watching German television with my beloved wife Hala when a Syrian refugee appeared on the show "The Voice of Germany".
He sang a song by Nasif Zeitoun in Arabic, the title of which translates as: "Loving a woman other than you would not work for me."
The song says: "Your love drove me into a frenzy, your love flows in my blood and lives in my brain cells."
The song expresses how my wife and I feel for each other, and I caught myself thinking of an Arab prejudice.
It says that interpersonal relationships among Arabs are stronger than among Europeans, and that their marriages are more stable.
Many Arabs are proud of this supposed peculiarity and sing about it in songs.
But I'm not sure that relations in the Arab world are really stronger.
They are probably just a little different from Germans.
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Samer Tannous
was a university lecturer in the Syrian capital Damascus.
Since December 2015 he has lived with his wife and two daughters in Rotenburg (Wümme) in Lower Saxony, where he works as a French teacher.
Together with his friend Gerd Hachmöller, he writes about his attempts to understand the customs of his new German homeland.
Perhaps there are readers who have spoken to Arabs about the cultural differences in marriage.
I have already been asked twice by Germans how it can be that Arab men remarry after a few months after they have lost their wives.
My German acquaintances had heard of this from refugee families or had seen it themselves.
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