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Marriage Means Sacrifices

Posted by C. Kramer-Baldwin on May 14, 2007 at 22:10:03:

MARRIAGE MEANS SACRIFICES
C. Kramer-Baldwin

A happy woman was one who could exercise all kinds of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could feel loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of other and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or to sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. (pg. 80)
“With the nationalists asking for their education, and the end of seclusion. For you know, the problem with women today is that they are powerless. And powerlessness stems from ignorance and a lack of education. (pg. 170 Mernissi)

Marriage takes commitment, but the women of Arab societies give up more than they bargained for. The class entitled “Arab Women Novelists’ Work” has brought together books from all over Arab nations and societies to show us the common threads among them concerning marriage. The themes in each book have been similar, but have been discussed in different manners. We see a contrast amongst the life of a woman in a harem and the life of a woman in a monogamous relationship. We see a common theme of affairs among the men in the books, the importance of virginity, the qualities that are important to have as a woman living in an Arab nation, and of course the importance of education to all the women. The contrast of what women believe is equality verses what the men think is equality is obvious and very straightforward. The discrepancies amongst women in the books and how they feel the basic rights of women should work are also discussed openly. Every woman and ever man has an idea of what women deserve. The books Pillars of Salt, Woman of Five Seasons, Balcony Over Fakihani, In the Eyes of the Sun and Dreams of Trespass allow us to view these different opinions and come up with our own theories and ideas of what a woman should be allowed and who should make the decisions on those rights. All of these common themes can make or break a marriage. The first part of every marriage is if it is a monogamous marriage or if there will be multiple women all living together in one common space, like a harem. The next factor tends to be the fertility of a woman (whether or not she is a virgin or has given up that sacred and pure part of being female) and if she has a boy child or a girl child or both; the you have the situation of education. Most of the women in these books were either supposed to continue their education, or they want an education because they want the independence and knowledge that comes with it. Relying on men is not in the characteristics of most of the women in these books. We have the independent and free minded Maha; the women of the harem who both agree with the traditional setting of a harem but also want to break free from tradition and become educated and live in a small family of their own; There is the lost Nadia who slowly comes into her own independence and finds freedom because of her education and her will to have power; there is Asya who looks for love and happiness anywhere she can find it (a woman who wants to discover and become who she wants to be); then there is Yusra who finds the man she loves only to loose him to a war. All the women in these novels want to love their husbands, but overall they want to their husbands to love them in return and they want to feel that love. Some of these women find that love and some don’t, but all go through a series of events that lead them to their demise by the world of men.
Harem life appears to have advantages as well as disadvantages according to the women in Dreams of Trespass. Living in a harem is like living in a commune, it consists of a group of people who share chores, entertain one another, sleep in the same building, and eat together. Being in a harem means that there is a support system of people who live together in one designated building or area. The difference between a harem and a commune is that the people in the harem are all related, and there are generally a great number of wives and children. A harem is specifically a Muslim household reserved for women. Harems are safe, and they give women a place to go according to the women of Dreams of Trespass, but they are also like a prison in many ways. The women of Dreams of Trespass are divided by there love or hate of harem life. Many of the younger generation of mothers want there daughters to grow up in a land where they can be with no one but their husband. ‘I was going to grow up in a wonderful kingdom where woman had rights, including the freedom to snuggle up with their own husbands every night.’ (pg. 37 Mernissi) Some of the women, generally the women of the older generations such as the grandmothers and great aunts of the daughter Fatima believe that harem life is good for women. It protects them from the world outside and it gives them the protection of a group of men. The younger generation of women believe that a harem is uncomfortable and old. ‘Soon we will have one man, one wife. ‘(pg. 37 Mernissi) There needs to be revolution in harem life, that allows women the freedom of movement inside and outside the harem. The traditional methods are dying according to some of the Messerini women, and they want to change with them. The Fatima’s mother wants to do what many families have begun to do, move out of the harem with her husband and live as a family unite, one that does not have to bend to the rules of a harem. ‘Sometimes, she said that to be stuck in a harem simply meant that a woman had lost her freedom of movement. Other times, she said that a harem meant misfortune because a woman had to share her husband with many others. ‘(pg. 34 Mernissi) The father would do this, but one of the great importance’s of harems is that it gives people a place to go. Instead of old folks homes we have harems, instead of a divorced woman being kicked out into the street to fend for herself we have a harem where she can go to live. The father does not want to leave his mother, so as long as she is alive so will there harem be alive.
In Pillars of Salt there is no harem, but there is the possibility for a man to have more than one wife, as long as he can treat them equally. Maha lives with her husband Harb and does a lot of the manual labor in there house with some help from the mother. They are happily married together. Maha has freedom of movement around the house and village, and she cooks whenever she wants, and eats when she wants. The only time that there is ever a possibility of more than one wife is when Maha fails to bare a child time and again. Maha as well as Harb's mother suggest that he take on another wife so that he can have an heir. He refuses and eventually after Harb dies Maha does have a son.
There are some major differences between the life of a harem woman and the life of a ‘monogamous’ marriage. One of the most major differences is that there are not multiple women sharing one man. This can be both good and bad. If a woman is married to a man who has multiple wives he then has an obligation to please all of them, and this can cause jealousy and rivalry among the women. A Monogamous relationship means that the woman has the attention of her husband which is excellent if the woman loves her husband and not so good if she doesn’t, which is where a harem can be an excellent place. There are other women to distract the man, and then there is a support system of woman to help each other. As has been said, the women of the harem have less freedom of movement than the women in a monogamous marriage. Maha also seems happier in many respects than the women of the harem. She has a husband all to herself, she runs the household, even though the mother does have some control over her, and she still is the main caretaker. Maha also has the freedom to leave her house and go to visit her father. In Dreams of Trespass the women never go to visit there respective families, once they marry into the harem that is who they belong to. If there is a divorce then the woman may return to her family, if the woman is arguing a right that she wants in the harem then a male from her family may come to aid her, but never does she go to visit them. Dancing, is forbayed for both, but where as the women of the harem begin to dance as soon as the men leave, Maha does not, she does her work and then proceeds to garden and weave. This may be due to the fate that the women of the harem live in the city and have access to radios and electronic, although they are not supposed to use them. Maha must find other ways, non modern ways to entertain herself. The women of the harem may not be educated, but their children are being educated. They are learning to read and write, where as Maha is uneducated and her children will probably be uneducated as well.
It seems that there are many similarities among harem life and monogamous lifestyles though. In Pillars of Salt, Harb’s mother does live with him and Maha, just as the grandmother of the Mersserini family lives with the harem. The women always run the household though, in both situations. The both do the chores, make the dinner, and take care of the children and the men. It is there job to make things enjoyable for everyone else, and when all this is done they may do things like go to the baths, or work on weaving. Dancing is not allowed, a tragedy among women of both situations.
The traditional women of the harem believe that freedom is what they have, that harem life is to be free. They feel that changing the way a harem is set up, with women having more power, and having the right to walk around on the streets, wear freer clothing and a veil that covers less is not freedom, instead they see it as demeaning to women because they are more visible to men. So instead of having the freedom of peace and the comfort of safety that they have with the veil, they appear ‘promiscuous.’
They also feel that the benefits of having less freedom and more protection outweigh having complete freedom. Knowing that they will always have a place that they can go to be protected is one of the most important things that they could ever ask for. The separation between the men and the women is fine, the traditional designs of weaving suites them well, the idea of a radical woman who wants changes is unacceptable if it may changes their strong support structure that they receive from their families.
The women who want change, (or the revolutionist as I will call them) Chama and the mother think that change is necessary to really obtain complete happiness and freedom.
Many of the books studied in this class have a common thread of men who travel out of their home country to places like Europe where they then proceed to have affairs. In Women of Five Seasons Ihsan travels to Europe and has an emotional and potentially physical affair with another woman. The fictional land that Ihsan comes from is based very much on the rules of affairs in Arab countries, not in the homeland, only overseas where it cannot cause discourse among the rest of the family. Nadia to our knowledge never finds out about the affair that Ihsan has. This is one of the reasons it is better to have the affair overseas because it is easier to keep a secret.
Nadia, Ihsan’s wife is very opposite of what is expected of a Bedouin born women in an Arab household. She chooses to try to go against the grain an become more independent form her husband. Women are expected to be completely obedient, to do everything they are told and not to object. Affection is not expected of her, education is not expected of her, and this kills Nadia emotionally on many different levels.

There they’ll sit, waiting for their husbands to return from their work or pleasure. Then in comes the man, heavy with fatigue, his waiting wife eaten up with longing. He’s a man who vents an urge, while she’s a woman looking for talk and tender affection, which she finds only with women like herself. The years pass, and he’s still a man and she’s still a woman. (pg. 40 Al-Atrash)

Nadia is originally a passive woman, doing whatever is required of her, but slowly she begins to grow and become stronger and more independent. She realizes that children are not the only thing in life that is important, that being happy is what is most important to her. She begins to take back her life; maybe the Bedouin lifestyle was good in the past, but for her being passive and not under her own control is upsetting. She is a metaphor for the changing of ways in Arabic countries, for educated women to become a norm in Arabic society, for it not to be necessary to have children, and for a woman to be an equal in her marriage.
Child birth is one of the most major aspects of a married Arab women’s life. To not be able to bear children or more specifically to bear a son could mean that a wife could be divorced or that her husband might marry another woman and neglect her. Some women give up everything to bear children, or are willing to through intense amounts of pain like Maha from Pillars of Salt. ‘I was barren. Barren. Do you here me? “Tamam, get your son another wife, “ I cried at the top of my voice and started swaying.’ (Pg. 75 Faqir)Bearing a child was so important to her that not only did she suggest that her husband Harb remarry, but she also went to a medicine woman who said that one of the only ways she would be able to become pregnant would be to have scalding metal rods put inside her, because surely this would allow her to have babies. It almost always seems that the men what the children, not usually the other way around. In A Balcony over the Fakihani Yusra says:

It was he who wanted the last one; the pregnancy had come about by mistake, but he didn’t encourage me to have an abortion, asking me instead what I had against a large family. I respected his wishes, realizing how much he longed for his own family that he hadn’t seen for so many years. And in a strange way, the face of the little baby, Jumana, was like his. (pg. 48 Badr)

Women are happy with having any child. They want their husbands to be happy, but they would be happy just having a daughter if society didn’t pressure them into wanting boys. Family is one of the most important pieces of Arab societies, and Yusra just wants to respect her husbands wish for a family.
Nadia for women of five seasons gives up her right to an education in order to have a child for a man she doesn’t love. Her education was something that she never wanted to give up, her mother and soon to be husband agreed that she would finish her education after her marriage, but that she would finish it. But the pressure to have children was too much, and she felt the need to prove that she could have children.

Might it be that I was different, that I couldn’t conceive? I stopped my studies that year, even though Ihsan and my mother agreed I should finish them after we married. I was preparing for second year Finals. But I couldn’t think of anything beyond proving I could be a mother. After months of ceaseless worry the doctor confirmed that I was pregnant, and we both relaxed. (Pg. 41 Al-Atrash)

In reality one of the only ways that Nadia could have had independence was if she finished her education. It almost appears that Ihsan doesn’t necessarily want to have children, but that he doesn’t want Nadia to be more intelligent than himself. Nadia eventually begins to take her independence into her own hands, and begins to demand things of her husband. This could potentially get her kicked out of her house in the Arab world, but luckily for her, Ihsan is so in love with his Nadia that when she begins to take control of her life he becomes more smitten with her than he was before.
Women are the lesser sex in all of the books and movies we have studied over the semester. In childbirth especially we see that the most desired outcome of birth is a baby boy. Giving birth to a baby boy will mean a secure place in the family. Giving birth to a girl, and continuing to give birth to girls could mean that the woman would be divorced or her husband may marry another woman so that a baby boy could be born. “I should thank Allah that he was a boy. Girls are a worry until you are in the grave. (pg. 129 Faqir). This is fascinating that woman is at fault when a baby girl is born. It has been proven that a man is the one that decides the sex, and many Arab women and men know this, yet this does not keep them from keeping the blame on the woman. In one movie watched in class a woman kept have girls, and her husband was more or less fine with this, but there was pressure from the mother of the husband to have a son. “If he did,” she said, “he would know that his wife was not responsible for not having a boy. You need two to make a baby. “ (pg. 33 Mernissi) She said that she was going to make the wife keep having babies until a boy was born. Yet women are still constantly blamed for the lack of a son in the life of the family. The woman worries about divorce because she can’t have a child. This is unjust because it is the mans job to create the boy. “What kind of good Muslim Leader, “ she said, “dismisses a wife just because she does not produce a son?” (pg. 33 Mernissi). The women in Dreams of Trespass are very knowledgeable on this subject. In a way the women of the harem are the lucky ones because they are the ones that will have a place to live even if they do not bear sons. They have the security of having other women around them to do that job. But by giving up their life in a harem they are setting themselves up for the same dangers that women in a monogamous relationship face, divorce, affairs, and more.
A woman who has lost her virginity outside of marriage is considered to be dirty and impure, not worthy of marriage. A woman’s virginity is her honor and if she looses it too soon it is lost forever. At least if she is married before hand the honor of her husband is also her own. When Nasra is raped by Daffash in Pillars of Salt her honor is completely stripped from her. She has no chance of ever marrying nor of regaining her honor. The blood of a virgin bride is a major ritual in according to this book. The virgin blood must be presented after it is spilled or else there is no honor in the marriage and it is annulled.

My friend had lost her virginity, her honor, her life. She was nothing now. No longer a virgin, absolutely nothing. A piece of flesh. A cheap whore. Nasra mumbled away to herself and sobbed. Daggers in my heart. (Pg. 11 Faqir)

The tragedy here is that Nasra was raped and yet her honor is still not preserved because the likely hood is that she provoked the attack. This makes it her fault, meaning that she should be the one to blame. Maha’s father understands that she would never provoke this attack from his son, but he cannot do anything to regain her honor nor can he do anything to Daffash except tell him never to do it again.
A woman must not only have her virginity but act as a virgin would through the first days of her wedding. She must be pure, innocent, act as though she does not know how to behave during intercourse (or in other words not respond to touch and stimuli). The attractive behavior of a woman is that of a virgin. “I was a virgin and virgins did not respond to their men. He might think I was a loose woman. (pg. 51 Faqir) A woman who is openly sexual, and responds is a woman who would ‘spread her legs’ for anyone. Virginity is coveted in many cultures around the world, but perhaps it is most coveted in the Arab nations in our world. Every culture has a set of rules for its women, and they differ depending on where a woman is. A woman in Arab society is expected to be a virgin, is expected to be demur and obedient, and is expected to know her place in everything she does.
In Women of Five Seasons, Nadia is attractive to Ihsan on their wedding day because of her virginal behavior, her shyness. “Her fear, her virginal shyness overruling you. (pg. 3 Al-Atrash). Later on her ability to take control of a situation, specifically when she begins to disobey Ihsan is also attractive to him. A woman has certain patterns that she must follow in a marriage. The patterns must specifically follow the desires of the husband. She must please him, be obedient to his wishes at all times. Although Nadia is being disobedient to Ihsan's wishes, in the end this ends up being a good thing. Ihsan's personality is that of someone who likes to break other people souls. To be in control of them, but let them think they have all the control in the relationship.
Many of the stories we have read have a common thread about education. The educated woman who marries the man that wants her to stop her education to have a baby. In Women of Five Seasons and then similarly in The Eye of the Sun both of the main women marry a man and then are expected to perform wifely duties. Nadia’s mother and her husband had made an agreement that she would continue her education after they were married, but this did not happen. She started feeling pressure to have children. Then after this, when she wanted a decent piece of literature to read, Ihsan wanted her to read magazines such as People and Marie Claire. It seems that Ihsan feels beneath Nadia when she reads literature, almost as though her education makes him feel stupid, since he lacks a complete education himself.

The book in my hand irritates him. From the first day of our marriage he’d make a point of pulling it from my hands, until at last I’d set it aside when he came into the room. I wanted to be his wife! I spring, don’t I, from the Bedouin women long ago, whose advice to her daughter has been passed down through generations of women? “Do whatever he tells you. Keep all his secrets. “ (pg. 33 Al-Atrash)

In the case of Asya she was allowed to continue her education, but it took her many years after her marriage before she was allowed to go abroad and study. Her whole family was educated so it was expected of her. One of the reasons she was not allowed abroad for so many years was because her husband Saif wanted children and she did not. She was pregnant once and ended up with a miscarriage. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children ever either, she did want them, but she wanted them when she was in her thirties instead of twenties and she wanted to adopt, not give birth. Child birth is one of the most important factors in all of these books. A child, and more specifically a male child from the woman’s husband is important above all else. Education is put at the bottom of the list of things for women to be accomplished in.
The ideal woman in an Arab society is pure, innocent, virginal, beautiful, hardworking, and obedient. She is not necessarily educated; (although more recently education has become more available to women in Arab societies) this woman is considered to be an unattainable woman according to Maha. “at any rate, he reflected, she obeys you absolutely. She evens topped reading books for your sake. She’d shout once, and get angry, if ever you took away her book.” (pg. 28 Al-Atrash). The men want it, the women do not necessarily agree with it or the burden that comes with it. Obtaining this status is rather difficult for any woman in this book. As Maha listens to what the men are saying on her wedding night, about what it means to be the ‘ideal woman’ many thoughts run through her head.

My ears were attuned to the sad rebab. Jarbwa was recounting the story of Umayma. The listening air carried his words to the ears of women. He listed the outstanding traits of Umayma. She was virtuous and pure, yielding and beautiful, generous and brave. When I looked at the rough faces of the women in the ill-lit tent, I realized that the Umayma the men were praising only existed in their own heads. (pg. 24 Al-Atrash)

Maha wants the real woman to be visible to the men of her tribe. She wants them to see that a hard working, stubborn, somewhat independent woman can be beautiful, and can be a worthwhile woman to pursue. After Maha marries and her husband Harb begins to go off on his trips, Maha’s independence grows. In Harb’s village she is not shunned by the others who see her working on her weaving without dying the yarn, or working in her garden. But when her father dies and her childhood home is left to her, the people of her village see her as unfit to keep it. Inheritance to the woman is not practiced often in Arab countries, and in Maha’s story, her land is violently taken from her, along with her baby and her freedom.
A woman’s place in a family never seems to be secure in Arab society. A woman could be removed from her place of power for being unattractive, unable to bare children, or if she doesn’t seem to be able to have a son. The end result can be divorce, or it can result in her husband marrying another woman. Men do not have to ask the permission of the first wife if they want to marry another woman. All that is required of them by law is that they may have up to a certain amount of wives as long as they can treat all of them equally. Unfortunately this is harder to do than to say. Many wives end up like Um Saad in Pillars of Salt, she was not allowed to sleep in her own room anymore, and lived in the kitchen and everyone was disrespectful to her.
A trend among the men in the novels we have red, is to start an affair when abroad, or to secretly marry a woman and then tell his wife later. In the case of Women of Five Seasons, Ihsan as well as Faris have affairs. In Faris’s case it ends in a marriage that he is then forced to annul.

Al-hemli’s wife. His third, can you believe it? She called me tonight, insisted I go and see her. It seemed an odd thing to ask, but I went. She swore she hadn’t known anything beforehand, or she would have told me, or else stopped her sister doing something so foolish. Her mother and Faris, it seems, had agreed on complete secrecy until after marriage, and that she’d be the one to tell me about it first. They’re just husband snatchers! No principles at all! And apart form all that, didn’t they even think of his daughter—the brides friend? And that he’s old as her father? But what do they care, so long as he’s rich? That bitch had been planning to get him ever since she visited Narjis to study with her. And I never caught on!” (pg. 117 Al-Atrash)

This was an unusual case for an affair. Most of the affairs we have red about happen out of the general Arab societies. They generally occur in Europe. The idea of out of sight, out of mind plays a big role here. As long as there is no possibility of the wife and the other woman meeting then it isn’t a problem. The men never seem to get in much trouble for their affairs, in fact the affairs happen and then if the women find out the most trouble they get in is with the family of his wife. They generally force a divorce of the new woman or that he stop seeing her. But if a woman were to have an affair, such as Asya from In the Eyes of the Sun, she could be divorced and shunned by many. Women are considered sullied after they have an affair. They are free to marry and divorce their husbands, but cheating within a marriage is not condoned.
Independence is what all these women really want. They want to be able to walk down the street freely, to be seen as intelligent people and not objects or working machines. Nadia expresses very deeply her wish to be seen as a human being who can do more than cook and clean and look pretty. She says:

I am not their woman. Not anyone’s woman! I’d always supposed Jalal was what he seemed, that he had real power to touch my inner being, to see it in a sexless way and communicate with it. But to him I’m just a female—and he’s a man. I—Nadia al-Faqih—no one will be able to know or possess her. From this moment on I posses myself. They’ll see a face unknown to them. (pg. 108 Al-Atrash)

She has been objectified enough. And even though she loves Jalal he disrespects her in the way she hates most, by making her feel weaker and lesser than men. Nadia and many of the women in Dreams of Trespass seem to feel that men want them to be belittled. The control over them would be completely removed if they started to allow them to have independence and the freedom to become who they want to become.

“The moment women get smart and start asking that very question,” she replied, “instead of dutifully cooking and washing dishes all the time, they will find a way to change the rules and turn the whole planet upside down.” (pg. 63 Mernissi)

They trap women from ever reaching their independence by creating his barrier where they can’t get an education and can’t be forthcoming in their interests and questions. Too much is forbidden to them.
Love with independence is what the women of these books want, but in my opinion they want to be loved first more than anything. Yusra in Balcony over Fakihani falls in love with her husband, who also loves her in return. This is the ideal relationship even though they are impoverished and fighting a war that they may loose. In the end all this doesn’t matter because Yusra is perhaps one of the happiest women out of the five novels red in “Arab Women Novelist’ Work”. These women wait there whole lives to be happy, but the dynamics of there marriage either allow them to have it and then loose it because their husband has died or they live in a harem, or because they were never happy with their marriage to begin with. Yusra says

“My whole life was spent waiting and waiting—but I hadn’t expected to marry a man who would love me and want me, wait with me, then leave forever and never come back.” (pg. 4, Badr).

It ends up that most of the women with happy marriages, that they are completely satisfied with, end up a widow. It seems to be inevitable. Either they end up unhappy with a husband the hate, or they end up with a dead husband and unhappy.
The relationships between the women and the men in these books range from anything to civil relationships and loving relationships, to hateful, unequal and uncivil relationships. Maha and Harb, and Yusra and Umar have the ideal relationship. They are couples in love, with enough equality to suffice, there education is relative, they learn what they can from their parents, and they have equality and in a sense sexual freedom. They have the happiest marriages out of the five books, but the also have the most tragic endings. Both loose their husbands and one ends up in a mental institution because her brother claims her to be crazy. Nadia and Ihsan, and Asya and Saif have marriages that were supposed to be happy, but they ended up in shambles. In both situations either one or both of the spouses had an affair, in both of the situations education was a major issue, and where as Asya had her education and was unhappy, Nadia was deprived of hers and was miserable. Both women come out as on top of their unhappy lives as they possible can, by making demands of their husbands and learning how to take control of situations. There marriages may not have been happy, but there lives changed drastically in a good way. The women of the Harem live in a situation where they are always competing with one another for the affection of their husbands. Yes, they have solidarity, and yes they do get along, but there every once in a while there is a competition of sorts over the husbands. ‘Every woman was to have the same right to education as a man, as well as the right to enjoy monogamy—privileged, exclusive relationship with her husband.’ (pg. 35. Mernissi) The mothers also are not allowed to educate themselves, and many of them do not agree with the harem way of life. They try to change all this, but in the end they start to change it through their children who have more options than they do.
The general feeling of these books is that of hopelessness, women who want to have a happy marriage, but who just end up with sadness, or inequality. They lack the education they want, they lack or loose the love the care about so much, they have to share their husbands with other women or deal with affairs, and through all this they are expected to be pure, and virginal and obedient. The women in these books are strong though, they fight for everything they most believe in and even if they do not get the results they want, the still have begun a revolution in the treatment of women in marriage. They are trying to change the idea that women must give up everything they care about and want in order to be happy and free in marriage. ‘My chance of happiness would depend upon how skillful I became with words.’ (pg. 16 Mernissi)

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: MARRIAGE MEANS SACRIFICES : C. Kramer-Baldwin : A happy woman was one who could exercise all kinds of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could feel loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of other and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or to sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. (pg. 80) : “With the nationalists asking for their education, and the end of seclusion. For you know, the problem with women today is that they are powerless. And powerlessness stems from ignorance and a lack of education. (pg. 170 Mernissi) : Marriage takes commitment, but the women of Arab societies give up more than they bargained for. The class entitled “Arab Women Novelists’ Work” has brought together books from all over Arab nations and societies to show us the common threads among them concerning marriage. The themes in each book have been similar, but have been discussed in different manners. We see a contrast amongst the life of a woman in a harem and the life of a woman in a monogamous relationship. We see a common theme of affairs among the men in the books, the importance of virginity, the qualities that are important to have as a woman living in an Arab nation, and of course the importance of education to all the women. The contrast of what women believe is equality verses what the men think is equality is obvious and very straightforward. The discrepancies amongst women in the books and how they feel the basic rights of women should work are also discussed openly. Every woman and ever man has an idea of what women deserve. The books Pillars of Salt, Woman of Five Seasons, Balcony Over Fakihani, In the Eyes of the Sun and Dreams of Trespass allow us to view these different opinions and come up with our own theories and ideas of what a woman should be allowed and who should make the decisions on those rights. All of these common themes can make or break a marriage. The first part of every marriage is if it is a monogamous marriage or if there will be multiple women all living together in one common space, like a harem. The next factor tends to be the fertility of a woman (whether or not she is a virgin or has given up that sacred and pure part of being female) and if she has a boy child or a girl child or both; the you have the situation of education. Most of the women in these books were either supposed to continue their education, or they want an education because they want the independence and knowledge that comes with it. Relying on men is not in the characteristics of most of the women in these books. We have the independent and free minded Maha; the women of the harem who both agree with the traditional setting of a harem but also want to break free from tradition and become educated and live in a small family of their own; There is the lost Nadia who slowly comes into her own independence and finds freedom because of her education and her will to have power; there is Asya who looks for love and happiness anywhere she can find it (a woman who wants to discover and become who she wants to be); then there is Yusra who finds the man she loves only to loose him to a war. All the women in these novels want to love their husbands, but overall they want to their husbands to love them in return and they want to feel that love. Some of these women find that love and some don’t, but all go through a series of events that lead them to their demise by the world of men. : Harem life appears to have advantages as well as disadvantages according to the women in Dreams of Trespass. Living in a harem is like living in a commune, it consists of a group of people who share chores, entertain one another, sleep in the same building, and eat together. Being in a harem means that there is a support system of people who live together in one designated building or area. The difference between a harem and a commune is that the people in the harem are all related, and there are generally a great number of wives and children. A harem is specifically a Muslim household reserved for women. Harems are safe, and they give women a place to go according to the women of Dreams of Trespass, but they are also like a prison in many ways. The women of Dreams of Trespass are divided by there love or hate of harem life. Many of the younger generation of mothers want there daughters to grow up in a land where they can be with no one but their husband. ‘I was going to grow up in a wonderful kingdom where woman had rights, including the freedom to snuggle up with their own husbands every night.’ (pg. 37 Mernissi) Some of the women, generally the women of the older generations such as the grandmothers and great aunts of the daughter Fatima believe that harem life is good for women. It protects them from the world outside and it gives them the protection of a group of men. The younger generation of women believe that a harem is uncomfortable and old. ‘Soon we will have one man, one wife. ‘(pg. 37 Mernissi) There needs to be revolution in harem life, that allows women the freedom of movement inside and outside the harem. The traditional methods are dying according to some of the Messerini women, and they want to change with them. The Fatima’s mother wants to do what many families have begun to do, move out of the harem with her husband and live as a family unite, one that does not have to bend to the rules of a harem. ‘Sometimes, she said that to be stuck in a harem simply meant that a woman had lost her freedom of movement. Other times, she said that a harem meant misfortune because a woman had to share her husband with many others. ‘(pg. 34 Mernissi) The father would do this, but one of the great importance’s of harems is that it gives people a place to go. Instead of old folks homes we have harems, instead of a divorced woman being kicked out into the street to fend for herself we have a harem where she can go to live. The father does not want to leave his mother, so as long as she is alive so will there harem be alive. : In Pillars of Salt there is no harem, but there is the possibility for a man to have more than one wife, as long as he can treat them equally. Maha lives with her husband Harb and does a lot of the manual labor in there house with some help from the mother. They are happily married together. Maha has freedom of movement around the house and village, and she cooks whenever she wants, and eats when she wants. The only time that there is ever a possibility of more than one wife is when Maha fails to bare a child time and again. Maha as well as Harb's mother suggest that he take on another wife so that he can have an heir. He refuses and eventually after Harb dies Maha does have a son. : There are some major differences between the life of a harem woman and the life of a ‘monogamous’ marriage. One of the most major differences is that there are not multiple women sharing one man. This can be both good and bad. If a woman is married to a man who has multiple wives he then has an obligation to please all of them, and this can cause jealousy and rivalry among the women. A Monogamous relationship means that the woman has the attention of her husband which is excellent if the woman loves her husband and not so good if she doesn’t, which is where a harem can be an excellent place. There are other women to distract the man, and then there is a support system of woman to help each other. As has been said, the women of the harem have less freedom of movement than the women in a monogamous marriage. Maha also seems happier in many respects than the women of the harem. She has a husband all to herself, she runs the household, even though the mother does have some control over her, and she still is the main caretaker. Maha also has the freedom to leave her house and go to visit her father. In Dreams of Trespass the women never go to visit there respective families, once they marry into the harem that is who they belong to. If there is a divorce then the woman may return to her family, if the woman is arguing a right that she wants in the harem then a male from her family may come to aid her, but never does she go to visit them. Dancing, is forbayed for both, but where as the women of the harem begin to dance as soon as the men leave, Maha does not, she does her work and then proceeds to garden and weave. This may be due to the fate that the women of the harem live in the city and have access to radios and electronic, although they are not supposed to use them. Maha must find other ways, non modern ways to entertain herself. The women of the harem may not be educated, but their children are being educated. They are learning to read and write, where as Maha is uneducated and her children will probably be uneducated as well. : It seems that there are many similarities among harem life and monogamous lifestyles though. In Pillars of Salt, Harb’s mother does live with him and Maha, just as the grandmother of the Mersserini family lives with the harem. The women always run the household though, in both situations. The both do the chores, make the dinner, and take care of the children and the men. It is there job to make things enjoyable for everyone else, and when all this is done they may do things like go to the baths, or work on weaving. Dancing is not allowed, a tragedy among women of both situations. : The traditional women of the harem believe that freedom is what they have, that harem life is to be free. They feel that changing the way a harem is set up, with women having more power, and having the right to walk around on the streets, wear freer clothing and a veil that covers less is not freedom, instead they see it as demeaning to women because they are more visible to men. So instead of having the freedom of peace and the comfort of safety that they have with the veil, they appear ‘promiscuous.’ : They also feel that the benefits of having less freedom and more protection outweigh having complete freedom. Knowing that they will always have a place that they can go to be protected is one of the most important things that they could ever ask for. The separation between the men and the women is fine, the traditional designs of weaving suites them well, the idea of a radical woman who wants changes is unacceptable if it may changes their strong support structure that they receive from their families. : The women who want change, (or the revolutionist as I will call them) Chama and the mother think that change is necessary to really obtain complete happiness and freedom. : Many of the books studied in this class have a common thread of men who travel out of their home country to places like Europe where they then proceed to have affairs. In Women of Five Seasons Ihsan travels to Europe and has an emotional and potentially physical affair with another woman. The fictional land that Ihsan comes from is based very much on the rules of affairs in Arab countries, not in the homeland, only overseas where it cannot cause discourse among the rest of the family. Nadia to our knowledge never finds out about the affair that Ihsan has. This is one of the reasons it is better to have the affair overseas because it is easier to keep a secret. : Nadia, Ihsan’s wife is very opposite of what is expected of a Bedouin born women in an Arab household. She chooses to try to go against the grain an become more independent form her husband. Women are expected to be completely obedient, to do everything they are told and not to object. Affection is not expected of her, education is not expected of her, and this kills Nadia emotionally on many different levels. : There they’ll sit, waiting for their husbands to return from their work or pleasure. Then in comes the man, heavy with fatigue, his waiting wife eaten up with longing. He’s a man who vents an urge, while she’s a woman looking for talk and tender affection, which she finds only with women like herself. The years pass, and he’s still a man and she’s still a woman. (pg. 40 Al-Atrash) : Nadia is originally a passive woman, doing whatever is required of her, but slowly she begins to grow and become stronger and more independent. She realizes that children are not the only thing in life that is important, that being happy is what is most important to her. She begins to take back her life; maybe the Bedouin lifestyle was good in the past, but for her being passive and not under her own control is upsetting. She is a metaphor for the changing of ways in Arabic countries, for educated women to become a norm in Arabic society, for it not to be necessary to have children, and for a woman to be an equal in her marriage. : Child birth is one of the most major aspects of a married Arab women’s life. To not be able to bear children or more specifically to bear a son could mean that a wife could be divorced or that her husband might marry another woman and neglect her. Some women give up everything to bear children, or are willing to through intense amounts of pain like Maha from Pillars of Salt. ‘I was barren. Barren. Do you here me? “Tamam, get your son another wife, “ I cried at the top of my voice and started swaying.’ (Pg. 75 Faqir)Bearing a child was so important to her that not only did she suggest that her husband Harb remarry, but she also went to a medicine woman who said that one of the only ways she would be able to become pregnant would be to have scalding metal rods put inside her, because surely this would allow her to have babies. It almost always seems that the men what the children, not usually the other way around. In A Balcony over the Fakihani Yusra says: : It was he who wanted the last one; the pregnancy had come about by mistake, but he didn’t encourage me to have an abortion, asking me instead what I had against a large family. I respected his wishes, realizing how much he longed for his own family that he hadn’t seen for so many years. And in a strange way, the face of the little baby, Jumana, was like his. (pg. 48 Badr) : Women are happy with having any child. They want their husbands to be happy, but they would be happy just having a daughter if society didn’t pressure them into wanting boys. Family is one of the most important pieces of Arab societies, and Yusra just wants to respect her husbands wish for a family. : Nadia for women of five seasons gives up her right to an education in order to have a child for a man she doesn’t love. Her education was something that she never wanted to give up, her mother and soon to be husband agreed that she would finish her education after her marriage, but that she would finish it. But the pressure to have children was too much, and she felt the need to prove that she could have children. : Might it be that I was different, that I couldn’t conceive? I stopped my studies that year, even though Ihsan and my mother agreed I should finish them after we married. I was preparing for second year Finals. But I couldn’t think of anything beyond proving I could be a mother. After months of ceaseless worry the doctor confirmed that I was pregnant, and we both relaxed. (Pg. 41 Al-Atrash) : In reality one of the only ways that Nadia could have had independence was if she finished her education. It almost appears that Ihsan doesn’t necessarily want to have children, but that he doesn’t want Nadia to be more intelligent than himself. Nadia eventually begins to take her independence into her own hands, and begins to demand things of her husband. This could potentially get her kicked out of her house in the Arab world, but luckily for her, Ihsan is so in love with his Nadia that when she begins to take control of her life he becomes more smitten with her than he was before. : Women are the lesser sex in all of the books and movies we have studied over the semester. In childbirth especially we see that the most desired outcome of birth is a baby boy. Giving birth to a baby boy will mean a secure place in the family. Giving birth to a girl, and continuing to give birth to girls could mean that the woman would be divorced or her husband may marry another woman so that a baby boy could be born. “I should thank Allah that he was a boy. Girls are a worry until you are in the grave. (pg. 129 Faqir). This is fascinating that woman is at fault when a baby girl is born. It has been proven that a man is the one that decides the sex, and many Arab women and men know this, yet this does not keep them from keeping the blame on the woman. In one movie watched in class a woman kept have girls, and her husband was more or less fine with this, but there was pressure from the mother of the husband to have a son. “If he did,” she said, “he would know that his wife was not responsible for not having a boy. You need two to make a baby. “ (pg. 33 Mernissi) She said that she was going to make the wife keep having babies until a boy was born. Yet women are still constantly blamed for the lack of a son in the life of the family. The woman worries about divorce because she can’t have a child. This is unjust because it is the mans job to create the boy. “What kind of good Muslim Leader, “ she said, “dismisses a wife just because she does not produce a son?” (pg. 33 Mernissi). The women in Dreams of Trespass are very knowledgeable on this subject. In a way the women of the harem are the lucky ones because they are the ones that will have a place to live even if they do not bear sons. They have the security of having other women around them to do that job. But by giving up their life in a harem they are setting themselves up for the same dangers that women in a monogamous relationship face, divorce, affairs, and more. : A woman who has lost her virginity outside of marriage is considered to be dirty and impure, not worthy of marriage. A woman’s virginity is her honor and if she looses it too soon it is lost forever. At least if she is married before hand the honor of her husband is also her own. When Nasra is raped by Daffash in Pillars of Salt her honor is completely stripped from her. She has no chance of ever marrying nor of regaining her honor. The blood of a virgin bride is a major ritual in according to this book. The virgin blood must be presented after it is spilled or else there is no honor in the marriage and it is annulled. : My friend had lost her virginity, her honor, her life. She was nothing now. No longer a virgin, absolutely nothing. A piece of flesh. A cheap whore. Nasra mumbled away to herself and sobbed. Daggers in my heart. (Pg. 11 Faqir) : The tragedy here is that Nasra was raped and yet her honor is still not preserved because the likely hood is that she provoked the attack. This makes it her fault, meaning that she should be the one to blame. Maha’s father understands that she would never provoke this attack from his son, but he cannot do anything to regain her honor nor can he do anything to Daffash except tell him never to do it again. : A woman must not only have her virginity but act as a virgin would through the first days of her wedding. She must be pure, innocent, act as though she does not know how to behave during intercourse (or in other words not respond to touch and stimuli). The attractive behavior of a woman is that of a virgin. “I was a virgin and virgins did not respond to their men. He might think I was a loose woman. (pg. 51 Faqir) A woman who is openly sexual, and responds is a woman who would ‘spread her legs’ for anyone. Virginity is coveted in many cultures around the world, but perhaps it is most coveted in the Arab nations in our world. Every culture has a set of rules for its women, and they differ depending on where a woman is. A woman in Arab society is expected to be a virgin, is expected to be demur and obedient, and is expected to know her place in everything she does. : In Women of Five Seasons, Nadia is attractive to Ihsan on their wedding day because of her virginal behavior, her shyness. “Her fear, her virginal shyness overruling you. (pg. 3 Al-Atrash). Later on her ability to take control of a situation, specifically when she begins to disobey Ihsan is also attractive to him. A woman has certain patterns that she must follow in a marriage. The patterns must specifically follow the desires of the husband. She must please him, be obedient to his wishes at all times. Although Nadia is being disobedient to Ihsan's wishes, in the end this ends up being a good thing. Ihsan's personality is that of someone who likes to break other people souls. To be in control of them, but let them think they have all the control in the relationship. : Many of the stories we have read have a common thread about education. The educated woman who marries the man that wants her to stop her education to have a baby. In Women of Five Seasons and then similarly in The Eye of the Sun both of the main women marry a man and then are expected to perform wifely duties. Nadia’s mother and her husband had made an agreement that she would continue her education after they were married, but this did not happen. She started feeling pressure to have children. Then after this, when she wanted a decent piece of literature to read, Ihsan wanted her to read magazines such as People and Marie Claire. It seems that Ihsan feels beneath Nadia when she reads literature, almost as though her education makes him feel stupid, since he lacks a complete education himself. : The book in my hand irritates him. From the first day of our marriage he’d make a point of pulling it from my hands, until at last I’d set it aside when he came into the room. I wanted to be his wife! I spring, don’t I, from the Bedouin women long ago, whose advice to her daughter has been passed down through generations of women? “Do whatever he tells you. Keep all his secrets. “ (pg. 33 Al-Atrash) : In the case of Asya she was allowed to continue her education, but it took her many years after her marriage before she was allowed to go abroad and study. Her whole family was educated so it was expected of her. One of the reasons she was not allowed abroad for so many years was because her husband Saif wanted children and she did not. She was pregnant once and ended up with a miscarriage. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children ever either, she did want them, but she wanted them when she was in her thirties instead of twenties and she wanted to adopt, not give birth. Child birth is one of the most important factors in all of these books. A child, and more specifically a male child from the woman’s husband is important above all else. Education is put at the bottom of the list of things for women to be accomplished in. : The ideal woman in an Arab society is pure, innocent, virginal, beautiful, hardworking, and obedient. She is not necessarily educated; (although more recently education has become more available to women in Arab societies) this woman is considered to be an unattainable woman according to Maha. “at any rate, he reflected, she obeys you absolutely. She evens topped reading books for your sake. She’d shout once, and get angry, if ever you took away her book.” (pg. 28 Al-Atrash). The men want it, the women do not necessarily agree with it or the burden that comes with it. Obtaining this status is rather difficult for any woman in this book. As Maha listens to what the men are saying on her wedding night, about what it means to be the ‘ideal woman’ many thoughts run through her head. : My ears were attuned to the sad rebab. Jarbwa was recounting the story of Umayma. The listening air carried his words to the ears of women. He listed the outstanding traits of Umayma. She was virtuous and pure, yielding and beautiful, generous and brave. When I looked at the rough faces of the women in the ill-lit tent, I realized that the Umayma the men were praising only existed in their own heads. (pg. 24 Al-Atrash) : Maha wants the real woman to be visible to the men of her tribe. She wants them to see that a hard working, stubborn, somewhat independent woman can be beautiful, and can be a worthwhile woman to pursue. After Maha marries and her husband Harb begins to go off on his trips, Maha’s independence grows. In Harb’s village she is not shunned by the others who see her working on her weaving without dying the yarn, or working in her garden. But when her father dies and her childhood home is left to her, the people of her village see her as unfit to keep it. Inheritance to the woman is not practiced often in Arab countries, and in Maha’s story, her land is violently taken from her, along with her baby and her freedom. : A woman’s place in a family never seems to be secure in Arab society. A woman could be removed from her place of power for being unattractive, unable to bare children, or if she doesn’t seem to be able to have a son. The end result can be divorce, or it can result in her husband marrying another woman. Men do not have to ask the permission of the first wife if they want to marry another woman. All that is required of them by law is that they may have up to a certain amount of wives as long as they can treat all of them equally. Unfortunately this is harder to do than to say. Many wives end up like Um Saad in Pillars of Salt, she was not allowed to sleep in her own room anymore, and lived in the kitchen and everyone was disrespectful to her. : A trend among the men in the novels we have red, is to start an affair when abroad, or to secretly marry a woman and then tell his wife later. In the case of Women of Five Seasons, Ihsan as well as Faris have affairs. In Faris’s case it ends in a marriage that he is then forced to annul. : Al-hemli’s wife. His third, can you believe it? She called me tonight, insisted I go and see her. It seemed an odd thing to ask, but I went. She swore she hadn’t known anything beforehand, or she would have told me, or else stopped her sister doing something so foolish. Her mother and Faris, it seems, had agreed on complete secrecy until after marriage, and that she’d be the one to tell me about it first. They’re just husband snatchers! No principles at all! And apart form all that, didn’t they even think of his daughter—the brides friend? And that he’s old as her father? But what do they care, so long as he’s rich? That bitch had been planning to get him ever since she visited Narjis to study with her. And I never caught on!” (pg. 117 Al-Atrash) : This was an unusual case for an affair. Most of the affairs we have red about happen out of the general Arab societies. They generally occur in Europe. The idea of out of sight, out of mind plays a big role here. As long as there is no possibility of the wife and the other woman meeting then it isn’t a problem. The men never seem to get in much trouble for their affairs, in fact the affairs happen and then if the women find out the most trouble they get in is with the family of his wife. They generally force a divorce of the new woman or that he stop seeing her. But if a woman were to have an affair, such as Asya from In the Eyes of the Sun, she could be divorced and shunned by many. Women are considered sullied after they have an affair. They are free to marry and divorce their husbands, but cheating within a marriage is not condoned. : Independence is what all these women really want. They want to be able to walk down the street freely, to be seen as intelligent people and not objects or working machines. Nadia expresses very deeply her wish to be seen as a human being who can do more than cook and clean and look pretty. She says: : I am not their woman. Not anyone’s woman! I’d always supposed Jalal was what he seemed, that he had real power to touch my inner being, to see it in a sexless way and communicate with it. But to him I’m just a female—and he’s a man. I—Nadia al-Faqih—no one will be able to know or possess her. From this moment on I posses myself. They’ll see a face unknown to them. (pg. 108 Al-Atrash) : She has been objectified enough. And even though she loves Jalal he disrespects her in the way she hates most, by making her feel weaker and lesser than men. Nadia and many of the women in Dreams of Trespass seem to feel that men want them to be belittled. The control over them would be completely removed if they started to allow them to have independence and the freedom to become who they want to become. : “The moment women get smart and start asking that very question,” she replied, “instead of dutifully cooking and washing dishes all the time, they will find a way to change the rules and turn the whole planet upside down.” (pg. 63 Mernissi) : They trap women from ever reaching their independence by creating his barrier where they can’t get an education and can’t be forthcoming in their interests and questions. Too much is forbidden to them. : Love with independence is what the women of these books want, but in my opinion they want to be loved first more than anything. Yusra in Balcony over Fakihani falls in love with her husband, who also loves her in return. This is the ideal relationship even though they are impoverished and fighting a war that they may loose. In the end all this doesn’t matter because Yusra is perhaps one of the happiest women out of the five novels red in “Arab Women Novelist’ Work”. These women wait there whole lives to be happy, but the dynamics of there marriage either allow them to have it and then loose it because their husband has died or they live in a harem, or because they were never happy with their marriage to begin with. Yusra says : “My whole life was spent waiting and waiting—but I hadn’t expected to marry a man who would love me and want me, wait with me, then leave forever and never come back.” (pg. 4, Badr). : It ends up that most of the women with happy marriages, that they are completely satisfied with, end up a widow. It seems to be inevitable. Either they end up unhappy with a husband the hate, or they end up with a dead husband and unhappy. : The relationships between the women and the men in these books range from anything to civil relationships and loving relationships, to hateful, unequal and uncivil relationships. Maha and Harb, and Yusra and Umar have the ideal relationship. They are couples in love, with enough equality to suffice, there education is relative, they learn what they can from their parents, and they have equality and in a sense sexual freedom. They have the happiest marriages out of the five books, but the also have the most tragic endings. Both loose their husbands and one ends up in a mental institution because her brother claims her to be crazy. Nadia and Ihsan, and Asya and Saif have marriages that were supposed to be happy, but they ended up in shambles. In both situations either one or both of the spouses had an affair, in both of the situations education was a major issue, and where as Asya had her education and was unhappy, Nadia was deprived of hers and was miserable. Both women come out as on top of their unhappy lives as they possible can, by making demands of their husbands and learning how to take control of situations. There marriages may not have been happy, but there lives changed drastically in a good way. The women of the Harem live in a situation where they are always competing with one another for the affection of their husbands. Yes, they have solidarity, and yes they do get along, but there every once in a while there is a competition of sorts over the husbands. ‘Every woman was to have the same right to education as a man, as well as the right to enjoy monogamy—privileged, exclusive relationship with her husband.’ (pg. 35. Mernissi) The mothers also are not allowed to educate themselves, and many of them do not agree with the harem way of life. They try to change all this, but in the end they start to change it through their children who have more options than they do. : The general feeling of these books is that of hopelessness, women who want to have a happy marriage, but who just end up with sadness, or inequality. They lack the education they want, they lack or loose the love the care about so much, they have to share their husbands with other women or deal with affairs, and through all this they are expected to be pure, and virginal and obedient. The women in these books are strong though, they fight for everything they most believe in and even if they do not get the results they want, the still have begun a revolution in the treatment of women in marriage. They are trying to change the idea that women must give up everything they care about and want in order to be happy and free in marriage. ‘My chance of happiness would depend upon how skillful I became with words.’ (pg. 16 Mernissi)

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