Girls of Riyadh

Lamees was very attentive to her relationship with her husband’s family. She worked hard to please them, especially his mother, whom she called Mama—something none of her Najdi friends would ever do.* The excellent relationship between Lamees and Um Nizar strengthened Nizar’s attachment to his wife even more as time went on.

Nizar would randomly bring home a bunch of red roses for Lamees for no special occasion. He posted little love letters on the fridge door before going off to his on-call shifts at the hospital. When he was about to take his rest break there, he always called her before going to bed. And when he returned home, he would take her out to a restaurant or shopping without the slightest anxiety or embarrassment about the possibility of running into one of his friends while his wife was at his side (a hang-up many Saudi men have). She made him sandwiches and salads, leaving them in the fridge when she set off to do her own hospital rounds. He waited impatiently for her to be finished so that they could spend the rest of their day together, like newlyweds still on their honeymoon.

THERE WAS a question haunting Sadeem that no one could answer to her satisfaction. She put her question regularly to Gamrah and Um Nuwayyir, leaving them feeling at a complete loss as to how to help their Sadeem. Is it a blessing or a curse for a woman to have knowledge? she wanted to know—referring to both academic knowledge and the practical experiences of everyday life.

Sadeem had observed that despite human progress and a general refinement of society’s ideas about life, when it came down to searching for a suitable bride, young and naïve girls tended to hold more of an attraction than girls who had attained an advanced level of knowledge and had a more sophisticated understanding of the world. The fact that it was extremely unusual for a female doctor to be married was a case in point. Men who came from this part of the world, Sadeem decided, were by nature proud and jealous creatures. They sensed danger when face to face with females who might present a challenge to their capabilities. Naturally, such men would prefer to marry a woman with only a very modest education, someone feeble and helpless, like a bird with a broken wing, and without any experience of the world. That way the man could assume the position of the teacher, who takes on the job of forming his pupil into whatever he wishes. Even if many men admired strong women, Sadeem pondered, they did not marry them! So the ignorant girl was in hot demand while the smart and savvy one watched helplessly as her name became slowly etched in a giant plaque in commemoration of spinsters, a virtual list that was growing longer every day to accommodate the requirements of all the insecure men who didn’t actually know what they wanted and so refused to attach themselves to a woman who knew absolutely what she wanted.

45.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: January 14, 2005

Subject: Sadeem’s Addiction

A man who signed as “Son of the Sheikhs”* is furious. He doesn’t understand why I criticized proud and jealous Saudi men in my last e-mail. (The ones who wouldn’t like to expose their wives to strange men, even their own friends, by walking down a shopping mall next to them or dining out in a restaurant with them.) “Son of the Sheikhs” explains this behavior by informing me that it is more embarrassing if a friend sees your wife than if a stranger sees her, because a stranger would not know who the husband is, but the friend will carry your wife’s picture engraved in his head and can call it up whenever he sees you! Brother “Son of the Sheikhs” sums it up with this: A man who is not jealous is not a man. Furthermore (he adds), it is perfectly natural for a man to choose a woman who is inferior to him (especially since all women, in his view, are one level below men in the hierarchy of organisms anyway!). But according to our guy’s reasoning, “a man needs to feel the weight of his own superiority and masculinity when he is with a woman. Otherwise, what would prevent him from marrying someone just like him—another man?”

Um, no comment…

The Sadeem who came back to Riyadh to visit her friends over the weekend was very different from the Sadeem who had left for Khobar in such misery a few weeks earlier. Gamrah was sitting in Sadeem’s old home, watching her friend closely. She didn’t doubt for a moment that Firas had something to do with Sadeem’s sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks; and the smile sketched across her face contained an adorable element of complete inanity: here were the well-known symptoms of love. “You cannot be balanced when it comes to expressing emotions, can you! It’s either a frown down to the ground or a smile that splits your face!” said Gamrah.