As I researched I came upon some information on the decline of marriages during the 1930s. It read, “Evidence of this crisis existed in the registers of the religious courts for that and the previous year. These registers demonstrated that the number of marriages was gradually declining” (Al-Ahram Weekly). This made me realize that almost all of the marriages in Egypt during the 1930s were arranged marriages. Amina, like most girls in Egypt was married at a young age without knowing how to love. After Amina gets put out of her house for going out without permission her husband puts her out and sends her to her mothers house. Amina’s mother says, “ But your husband? … An intelligent man going on fifty… can he find no other way to express his anger than by throwing out the companion of a lifetime and separating her from her children? (202). Exactly. Amina’s mother said it loud and clear the “companion of a lifetime” this is something you don’t just give up on. My reasoning is that marriage that are arranged tend to be treated more as a treaty not something you do because you are in love and you want to make a family. This is because Ahmad and every other male take marriage as being something that you do when you are an adult. They don’t take proper care of it, and just throw people out of their homes when things stop running smoothly. Its like both the men and the women care more about their children than their own marriage and relationship with their husband or wife. Amina tells her mother, “The only thing bothering me is that I’m anxious about my children, Mother” (203). Amina makes that comment as if Ahmad was slowly being erased from the family portrait and she had lost complete affection towards him. To me this shouldn’t be like this. Marriages are being broken apart due to the lack of love that the partners feel for each other. Marriage should be something sacred that we want to experience not something we have to do when we reach adulthood.
Work Cited:
1. "Al-Ahram Weekly | Chronicles | Wedding woes." Al-Ahram Weekly | Front Page. Web. 25 Feb. 2010.
2. Mahfouz, Naguib. Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy). New York: Anchor, 1990. Print.
You make interesting use of your research. Do you think there is a difference between the 1910s and the 1930s in Egypt? Can you include a citation and a hyperlink?
ReplyDeleteJavi–
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say that men look at marriage like simply as something that's done when they reach adulthood only that I think that in this society it's not only men that think like this but also women. They speak of it as if it was a chore, simply something that must be done, and not like what it really is- a sacred union formed by love. We get a glimpse of how they think through Yasin's comment to Kadhija regarding her not been able to marry. He says, "Marriage is the destiny of every living creature.... Have no fear.... Don't panic (158)." Unfortunately, this is the way people think in this society and it has led to couples not being bound by love but instead by convention. Although this is all very normal to them since they practice it, it doesn't make any logical sense to us. Like you said we, contrary to them, believe marriage should be something sacred that we want to experience not something we have to do when we reach adulthood.
Tracy has made a great point, everybody in the novel Palace Walk refers to marriage as something that at some point must happen. They don't believe that marriage is about loving and appreciating the company of a spouse. Unfortunately, this belief has lead to the decline of marriages like the article you, Javi, have read. Also their culture makes no sense to us. To understand them better we must take into consideration their culture.
ReplyDeleteAhmad, for example, wants the best for his daughters. He wants them to be successful in the future, and most important of all, he wants them to have a successful marriage. "Like all fathers, he wished to protect his daughters, but would have preferred that marriage was not the only way to provide this protection" (263). Even Ahmad fears a failure in any of his daughter's marriage. He also introduces a new way we can view marriage, as a type of protection.
Tracy, you made a great observation that I had never thought about before. I guess since I come from a family where there is only one parent, my mother, I tend to blame the men for making marriage seem horrible. But I do agree that women do take part in making the marriage seem like a chore. But I think that the men have more of the fault because they are the ones that are designed to be in control of the relationship. The narrator says, “The only praise she ever succeeded in eliciting from her husband, if he did favor her with a praise, was for a type of food she prepared and cooked to perfection” (15). As you can see the narrator is talking about Amina and how her husband shows no form of affection or love in the marriage. He apparently only makes notice of what she is doing right. Ahmad, if he were in love, would show her more often and wouldn’t just praise her for doing her job as a wife.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Javier in the fact that men are the ones that make the marriage horrible. Men never actually appreciate what women do for them. To Yesenia's argument that Ahmad wants what's best for his daughters "No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me… me … me… me"(157). Thanks to this quote we see that the only way that one of Ahmad's daughters will get marry will be because the husband wants to be related to him.
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