RIYADH: Ever heard of husband and wife, son and mother, brother and sister, not seeing or even recognizing each other after having lived together for decades? Imagine a husband and wife who lived together for half a century as a married couple and raised family like any other normal couple, yet the husband does not know how his wife looks like.

This appears as something bizarre from some other planet. Not indeed.

It actually happens here in Saudi Arabia. There are husbands, brothers and sons who have never seen the faces of their own wives, sisters and mothers – let alone cousins and aunts.

There are wives who have never shown their faces to their husbands. This is culture and tradition – nothing connected with religion.

This unspoken tribal non-disclosure agreement is a well-established tradition in some parts of Saudi Arabia. Despite the vast social and economic developments the country has seen in all walks of life, this is one bad custom that nobody bothered to kick.

The situation can get even more weird: women can’t or won’t uncover their faces even before women. They will become social outcasts if they do. They thus remain faceless all their lives.

Speaking to the Al Jazirah newspaper, Al Jaziya, a mother of three in her late 20s, said she had no idea how or when the tradition started.

“I received only primary education and since the day I got married, my husband, who happens to be my cousin, has never seen my face, neither before nor after marriage. I make sure to wear my veil day and night, so that there isn’t any possibility of him seeing my face or how I look like.”

She is even not keen to find out the logic behind what she does.

“This tradition has been part of my life since the day I opened my eyes,” Al Jaziya said. “Believe it or not, I have never seen the faces of even my closest female relatives _ my cousins and aunts.”

She said every member of her tribe believed that it was a shame for women to uncover their faces.

One day a big fight broke out between two women just because one of them tried to uncover the other’s face, she recalled.

Nevertheless, she prefers the tradition over even contemplating the alternative. “Covering my face is a hundred times better than mixing with men and painting our faces with make-up,” she said.

Umm Majed, a housewife in her mid-60s, thinks the tradition is beyond questioning.

“Why do you interfere in our personal affairs?” she asked Al Jazirah’s reporter. “We have been brought up to respect this particular tradition. It never even occurred to me to ask why I have to cover my face in the presence of my father, brothers and my husband whom I married 40 years ago.”

“For God’s sake, leave us alone. We are content with our way of life,” Umm Majed said.

Wedaha, a good-looking woman working as a teacher, has no qualms about uncovering her face to the female reporter, but still wouldn’t unveil herself before a man.

When her Western-educated twin brother tried to talk her into showing him her face, she would not budge. When he tugged at her veil to see if she was an image of his own self, she never spoke to him for months.

“I wanted to teach him a lesson that we respect our traditions no matter how educated we are,” she said.

Umm Fawaz, still stunningly beautiful in her 50s, fell ill for several days and could not look her husband in the face anymore, simply because he saw her face by accident.

She said she only uncovers her face in total privacy after making sure her husband and children are out of the house.

“Only then I can feel free to change my clothes and remove my veil,” she said. “One day I walked over to the living room with my face uncovered. I never knew my husband was sitting there watching television. He saw my face. He screamed when he saw me without a veil.

“I ran to my room and locked myself up for several hours. When I came out, he was very angry at me. It took him several months to get over it,” Umm Fawaz said.

Perceptions about the tradition are now being challenged. Meshal, a businessman, thinks it is about time this tradition went the way of the dinosaur.

“Even though a woman covering her face implicitly means that she respects the man before her, be it her father, brother or husband, I will never marry a girl who covers her face in my presence or in the presence of my relatives.

“I am a modern man and I will never accept such a tradition even if I stay a bachelor for the rest of my life.”