JUST a few years ago Saudi women could only travel in the company of a male relative, whether husband, brother or son. Pressed by reformists, the kingdom eased the rules, allowing women over the age of 52 to travel alone, and younger ones too, so long as their male guardian secured an official “yellow slip” giving his consent. The Saudi passport authority has now made things easier still. An initiative to provide e-government services, launched earlier this year, means that male guardians need no longer wait in queues or fill out forms. By registering online, they automatically receive notification by SMS when any of their dependents, whether women or children, crosses a Saudi border.

Few of those who registered were aware of this benefit until last week, when a Saudi newspaper carried the story of a man who had just boarded a flight to Europe when he received the puzzling message that his wife, who was seated next to him, had left the kingdom. Yet many Saudis seem dissatisfied with the new service. One woman, identifying herself as Om Khadra, tweeted that perhaps the Saudi Ministry of Interior should expand the scope of its project, and notify wives electronically whenever their husbands decide to take a second, third or fourth spouse.

Some of the fiercest protest, however, has come from more conservative Saudis, who would prefer to revert to the old ways when women had to be physically accompanied by someone of the more responsible sex. This is not surprising in a country where women are not allowed to drive cars, and where several leading clerics voiced outrage earlier this month when Britain’s Christian prime minister, David Cameron, was photographed shaking hands with students at a Saudi girls’ college.

The concern to protect women who travel does seem strange, considering how some conservative males view their veiled counterparts. In a recent appearance on a popular television talk show, a Saudi professor of Islamic jurisprudence rebuked a female scholar for suggesting that husbands bear some responsibility for their wives’ health. He likened his debating partner, who happens to sit on the kingdom’s national human-rights board, but who (he insisted) should sit in a separate studio, to an apostate. Her crime? To dispute his reasoning that it is unjust for husbands to bear the cost of their wives’ medical treatment, just as it is unfair to demand that someone who rents property should be forced to pay for wear and tear.