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How horrible that system is. A Texas co-worker of mine years ago worked in Saudi, and when his wife visited, he warned her in advance that when they met at the airport after six months of separation, not to hug him or anything. There were watchers at the airport with their sticks. She rushed forward and raised her arms - and so did one of the watchers raise a stick. Luckily she remembered in time!

As an aside, during the seventies I spent a couple of years over there. I remember the first time I went...the plane was only half full, and a number of attractive women were aboard, scattered throughout the plane. I fell asleep.

When I awoke, to the garbled chatter of the pilot informing us that we would soon be landing, I noticed that the women were gone. In their places were "black ghosts", for the women had all donned their habayias. It was all new to me at the time and somewhat troubling.

In retrospect, I imagine that the women are quite happy to go wild, as do their male counterparts, when out of the watchful and contemptuous eyes of the matawa. The Saudi men I taught all had tales of adventures in the USA, complete with pictures of their American girlfriends, which were related only after they trusted me.

Those were more lenient times, too. The religious police have gotten a much greater influence over the years.

Human nature tends to favor sampling the forbidden fruit, whenever it appears unguarded. We consider it our right to do so, whatever might the folly of it be. But Saudi women pay a price for their circumstance.

"How horrible that system is. "

"...when I read about airlines that will not seat females or children next to single males..."

Yes, indeed. Now, understand the crazed behavior of muslims when they leave the shackles of Sharia. When I left Saudi, after only a little over two years, I found myself looking at normally dressed western women as if they were nude. It took a while for me to contain the urge to stare. Men who live under Sharia consider unescorted women to be whores and will stare and touch at their pleasure. More, if not quickly discouraged. This is, after all, what they've been conditioned to believe. It is no wonder that some airlines might hesitate to place unescorted women next to unescorted muslim men.