In the western cultures, marriage is usually accomplished based on love and after a period of acquaintance, while in the traditional Islamic culture it is arranged by the families and some women are forced to marry without consent. We planned to investigate the level of marital satisfaction, the prevalence of sexual problems and related issues in couples.

We planned to investigate all the patients with sexual problems attending Dicle University psychiatry outpatient clinic between February-July 2007. All were living according to traditional Islamic culture. During study period, 31 heterosexual couples were included in our study, Following questionnaires were administered to the patients: Sexual dysfunction was assessed according to DSMIV criteria, Maudsley Marital Questionnaire (MMQ).

Twenty-five (80.64%) of the couples attended the clinic for not being able to have any sexual intercourse at all. Overall, 25.8% of the women, and 3.2% of the men had been married without their consent, those marriages were arranged and mediated by match-makers. Vaginismus (58.06%) was the most common diagnosis among women and premature ejaculation (38.70%) among men. We found that marital satisfaction was affected by the mode of marriage.

We found that, present culture differs from Western cultures in terms of marriage modes and traditions like the obligation to show bloody sheet after the first night of marriage. In our cases, the most common sexual problem was vaginismus among women and premature ejaculation among men. There was a relation between marital satisfaction and mode of marriage.