Turkish men from Altinkum Didim have married British women

The number of marriages between Turks and Britons are on the rise in the Aegean holiday resort of Didim, a town that has long been popular with British home buyers, but most couples do not exactly live up to the image of an ideal family, a comprehensive survey recently conducted by a local high school has found. The British have been buying holiday homes in Didim for nearly a decade and, consequently, marrying locals from the area. But 30 percent of these unions fail, according to data compiled in a recent research paper by students from the Ayd?n High School of Social Sciences.

According to the research, which involved face-to-face interviews with Turkish-British area couples and with officials from the local census, national education and real estate directorates as well as the local tax department and the Didim court, 303 young Turkish men from Didim and its neighboring towns have married British women since 2000.

Other qualities common to most of these marriages that stood out as striking facts in the students’ research include the fact that in almost all of these marriages (90 percent), the female Briton was the older partner.

Again, 90 percent of the divorced couples never had children as the women have almost always set it as a precondition for marriage that they do not want children. The divorced couples cited as the main reasons for their separation differences in religion, language and culture as well as not finding what they had hoped for in the relationship, the cutting off of financial support and, in some cases, domestic violence.

The students, led by their biology teacher, Ali ?hsan K?rta?, who acted as an advisor to the students, are planning to submit their project to a number of social science competitions. Noting that the family unit is the cornerstone of society, K?rta? said: Marriages in this region between Turkish citizens and British citizens have been based on economic reasons.

Many young Turkish men who are looking for adventure because they are young decide that they would like to live abroad. This is also one of the reasons for these marriages. After a bit of time, though, the differences between the partners in these marriages begin to emerge. Cultural differences lead the way to these marriages being short term. After marriage, neither side is able to find what it is they were looking for in a partner, and when financial support stops between the partners, we also see that these divorces go up.

Burak Erol, Tu?çe Nur Yara and Kyra Menge?, who prepared the research as part of their graduation project, noted: We decided to research this topic because much attention is paid in the news to marriages between British and Turkish people. The fact that so many British citizens have moved to Didim as of late means that the local population has gone up.

And this increase in the population has had an inescapable effect on the socio-cultural underpinnings of the area. We discovered that with nearly one out of every five Turkish citizens having married a foreigner since 2003 in Didim, that 90 percent of the British women married to Turks were older than their husbands. The students also underscored this detail about the divorces seen between the Turkish-British couples in the region: Translators are usually needed in these divorce cases.

Neither side presses for compensation. Generally, the divorcing couple does not have children. Those who have experienced domestic violence at the hands of their Turkish spouses usually want to return to their own countries. In many marriages, the desire by the British citizen to have house pets or a more active nightlife brings the union to an end.

One piece of analysis offered to the students as they carried out their research by Didim civil marriage clerk Firuzan Al?n was the following: In 90 percent of these marriages, the woman is older and the man is younger. We even have married couples in which there was a 30-year age difference. The minute their marriage papers are presented, they head straight for the British Consulate to apply for a visa.

As for Didim Mayor Mümin Kamac?, he told the students: Turkish men often marry the women who they get along with at the place where they work. The British citizens are looking for homes, while the Turkish families are looking for daughters-in-law. Todays Zaman Reported on 14th May 08

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Category: National