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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 January 2000 Issue No. 465 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 January 2000 Issue No. 465
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Trials and tribulations
By Fayza Hassan
My mother often recounts that when she first read her marriage contract she was so terrified that, had the witnesses and the ma'zoun not been in the other room, she would have simply taken to her heels. The contract, drawn up in French, a language she was quite familiar with, made clear the nature of the relationship she was about to enter into; in a nutshell, her husband (later, my father) had all the rights, while she had none. It dawned on her, coming from a background that sanctified unions in church ceremonies and decreed that they would last a lifetime, that this was no marriage at all. By sheer luck, my father happened to be a good man and I do not believe that she had serious reason over the years to regret having gambled on him; other foreigners who followed the same path, however, found it far rockier.
I met Lucy ten years ago. A pretty Englishwoman in her late twenties, she had been living in Egypt for a couple of years. She had met Emad in London, where he was finishing his Ph.D.; they had fallen in love and were married there. Lucy was pregnant when she came to Egypt with her new husband. Their son was born shortly after their arrival. She had known little about Emad's background, financial situation, relationship with his family or the traditions that governed his life, and was therefore quite taken aback when informed that living with Emad's extended family, which she mistook for a temporary arrangement, was in fact the real thing.
Her mother-in-law disliked her intensely and made little effort to hide it, but was quite pleased with her grandson and practically dispensed Lucy of caring for him. Lucy could no longer see the baby whenever she wanted; soon the crib was moved to the older woman's room.
Emad and Lucy were quarrelling frequently now as he took his mother's side in each and every dispute. Lucy spent most of her time locked up in her room. Emad was out with his "childhood friends" every night. They too disliked Lucy who neither spoke their language nor attempted to learn it.
One day, Emad gingerly broached the subject of divorce and Lucy agreed readily. "Just get tickets for me and my son and we will be out of your hair in no time," she told him defiantly. When she found out that what Emad had in mind was a one-way ticket for her alone, she refused to go. Her husband informed her then that his mother had arranged for him to marry a cousin from the richer branch of the family, and that Lucy had to move to make room for the new wife. "Never," screamed Lucy. "You'll live to regret it," shouted Emad in return, locking her up in the room.
She became a prisoner for the next few days: she was taken to the bathroom at regular hours by her husband and his mother and a tray with her meals was brought in, then taken away, by a burly man she had never seen before.
Meanwhile, preparations for the wedding were going on and Lucy decided that she had to take her fate into her own hands. One afternoon, she watched from her third floor window as visitors filed into the house, then climbed onto the window-sill in her flimsy nightgown and out onto the narrow ledge below. From there, she attempted to attract the attention of passers-by, but with the racket of the afternoon traffic, no one noticed her except the people in the house, who came running upstairs. Lucy remembers Emad speaking softly to her and promising to do whatever she wished, provided she just moved back into the room. Since she had not seriously contemplated jumping, she eventually thought it wise to comply. She even agreed to get dressed and come downstairs to meet her mother-in-law's guests. As she sat among them, she noticed a sort of agitation, punctuated by numerous telephone calls, but as she understood no Arabic, she was stunned when a doctor and a couple of male nurses made a sudden entrance and, without a word, pounced on her and carried her away in an ambulance.
Lucy was institutionalised for several months. At the end of this period, Emad came to see her. He gave her a plane ticket to London and explained that he had divorced her, was remarried and that if she made any trouble, he would see to it that she spent the rest of her life behind bars. Either way, she would never see her son again.
Beaten, Lucy went home. She came back two years later, determined to see her son. To her surprise, the situation had now changed. Her former mother-in-law was bedridden and Emad, no longer subjugated by the parental will and in control of the family's income, was more agreeable to working out a compromise. Lucy's son had proved to be a handful and his wife, with a new baby daughter, would not mind having him out of the way. Lucy found a job as a secretary, and hired a reliable nanny for her son. Soon a routine was established, with the little boy staying weekends and sometimes the entire week with her. When she remarried -- again to an Egyptian -- her son asked for, and obtained, permission to move in permanently with the couple. Strangely enough, he is a charming, well-adjusted young man, who loves his four parents and assorted half-brothers and sisters dearly.
