Dr. Drieskens’ case studies cover 30 unmarried women between the ages of 25 and 35, living in diverse Beirut neighborhoods, who are of different confessional and class backgrounds. Drieskens has observed their social interactions both at home and outside the home, where normative expectations for endogamy were often referenced. Many however considered "homogamy" - a term coined to express the need to marry someone who shares similar ideals and educational standards - to be more important. The imperative is thus a harmonious relationship rather than sustaining the patrilineage or marrying within one's religious group.  Drieskens' fieldwork to date shows that beyond socioeconomic and demographic factors, "not to marry is also a choice" for women

Drieskens is a social and cultural anthropologist. She obtained her PhD at the University of Leuven, Belgium in 2003 and since October 2003 has been working as a researcher at the Institut Français du Proche Orient (IFPO). Her doctoral research was conducted in Cairo where she studied how men and women lived their daily lives with the presence of djinns. Her book about this subject will be published by Saqi Books next year.  In Beirut she is working on the notion of reputation, on questions of social control and individual freedom, through a study of young unmarried women.