Manama: A Saudi religious scholar said that a would-be fiancee should appear the first time to her prospective groom without make-up or ornate clothes in order to allow him to see her in her natural looks.

“The would-be fiance needs to see her the way she is and the way she looks,” Abdul Rahman Al Barrak said. “Make-up usually adds extra or artificial beauty that is some kind of a deception because it is not natural. It is similar to the deception used in the past to embellish slaves and sell them,” he said on his Twitter account.

The scholar was answering an online question about whether a woman could wear make-up before seeing her prospective fiance for the first time.

Under a traditional wedding in conservative families, couples are allowed to meet under the watchful eye of a chaperone.

However, in some stricter cases, the marriage is arranged with the prospective groom not seeing the woman at all, relying solely on the eyewitness reports of his female relatives on her appearance.

Al Barrak said that the best solution to remedy to possible confusion would be for the groom to see the woman without anyone informing or alerting her so that he could observe her in a more natural setting and take his decision whether to go ahead with the marriage proposal.

He explained that such an arrangement would ensure the woman is spared the humiliation of a direct and open rejection by the would-be groom at their face-to-face meeting in the presence of family members.

In November, a Saudi groom divorced his bride on their wedding night after seeing her face for the first time.

The couple had accepted to marry without meeting or seeing each other at least one time as is the custom with traditional families who allow the prospective groom and the future bride to exchange looks.

It was only on the wedding night, and as the female guests from the two families were celebrating the wedding, that the groom saw the bride’s face for the first time.

“You are not the girl I want to marry. You are not the one I had imagined. I am sorry, but I divorce you,” the groom told the bride.

Under the shock, she had a nervous breakdown and broke into tears, drawing the attention of the guests who rushed to her and tried to understand how an evening of happiness was turning into a tragedy.

The groom was branded by social media users as “irresponsible” and “insensitive” and wished the bride better fortune with another groom.