THE ZENOBIANS
Yesterday I was invited to attend a meeting of the Zenobians, a women’s discussion group run by the British Embassy and named after the famous Desert Queen, Zenobia, whose ambitions made her fall foul of the Roman Empire leading to her being “bound in chains of gold” and taken from Palmyra to Rome where she ended her days incarcerated in a villa. The group meets once a month and an invited speaker gives a talk on a different topic each time. I thought this month’s topic was herbal medicine, but it turned out that the calendar had been changed and that is the theme of next month’s talk.
The meeting is held in a basement apartment in Malki. Mary (the British consul’s wife) and I arrived first because she is in charge of proceedings at the moment as the person usually responsible is in the UK having a baby. Then a Sri Lankan couple, Fernando and Monica, who are employed to arrange the seating and serve the tea, arrived. They laid out the bite-sized strawberry tarts and chocolate cakes on platters (they were supposed to be chocolate éclairs but the boy at the bakery was new and did not understand what éclairs were) and Lady Grey, Prince of Wales and ordinary Liptons tea bags were produced. All very British. Among the audience was a lady from Manchester who came to Damascus as the correspondent of the BBC in 1948, married a Syrian doctor and has been here ever since. She is 73 years old, as bright as a button, and works as an unofficial guide in the Old City.
The talk was given by a highly articulate Syrian woman, a graduate and PhD from Leicester university, who teaches English literature at Damascus University. The theme of her talk, which was amply peppered with apt quotations from English poets, was the trap in which young people find themselves in Syrian society. What she had to say was gratifying and depressing at the same time: gratifying because I was able to confirm that my own x-ray of the state of affairs was accurate and, precisely because that was so, depressing. She confirmed that the main concern of all young men was to find a job in order to be able to marry, and that the main goal for 90% or more of young women was to find a husband. The authoritarian patriarchal mould means that individual thought and initiative are actively discouraged and, even when a student expresses an individual opinion in a private interview, the moment his, but particularly her, opinion is sought in an open debate, she will retract her own view and present the socially accepted opinion based on conformity and obedience to authority. The tendency to burden the female with guilt feelings is also widespread. An American university teacher present then pointed out that the few who do dare to flout the steamroller of society are the ones who apply for Fulbright scholarships to American universities. When asked if there was one young girl in each class who dared to be herself, the answer was an unequivocal no: perhaps once every three or four years there will be one girl in the whole year in that particular faculty!
The discussion which followed the talk was also interesting. The American university person attributed the sitiuation to the political sphere, but the Syrian women present did not accept this, insisting that the constraints were social rather than political, and I agree with her. They said that the government laid down no guidelines regarding these issues and that power in these fields lay within the family. One of the women offered her own situation as an example. She told how she was regarded as a liberal mother but that, when her children reached adolescence, she had closed the door of family democracy. My son can bring his girlfriends home and I treat them well. Would you allow him to marry one of them? Yes, because my own brothers married their girlfriends. What do think about the reputation of these girls who will go out with your son before a formal engagement has been arranged? Their reputation is not my problem. It’s their family’s problem. But, if my daughter were to say she had a boyfriend and wanted to bring him home, that would be a different thing altogether. No way! Why not? Because I am divorced and I have to bring up my children. I must think about safeguarding my daughter’s reputation so she will be able to marry, and at the same time I must safeguard my OWN reputation. If my daughter were to do something considered incorrect socially, then people would say What do you expect? She has a liberal mother so ... The speaker then added, But your son is above good and evil simply because he is male. Correct, the woman replied.
Another Syrian lady who had studied at university in the early sixties expressed her sorrow that on the threshold of the new millenium the issues under discussion should be ones which she and her generation thought were buried long ago. Thirty years ago the university campus was much more secular than it is today and she found the growing Islamization (at least in terms of external trappings of religiosity) quite sad. She told how a friend had burned her veil more than forty years ago, and her generation thought that the major battles had been won to allow young women to have more options and a greater say in their lives, but now she sees that they were wrong. The pressure of society has been too strong and many young girls now cover, not because they believe it is right but because, if they do not, it will prove more difficult to find a husband as more and more young men want veiled wives. The consensus of opinion was that there is no prospect at the moment of things changing very much.
And when all this basic works still remains to be done in most of the world, the main thrust of the Beijing Conference on Women seemed to centre around the rights of lesbians!! What is clear is that no change will come until women themselves decide that they are no longer prepared to be at the mercy of society and that they deserve to have a say in the path their own lives take.
July 20th 1998
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
WALKING THE STREETS
WALKING THE STREETS OF DAMASCUS
The first thing you notice when you walk the streets of Damascus, or at least Mezze the area where we live, is that you literally have to do just that, because the pavements have been taken over by cars as a car park. Some drivers, considerate enough to remember that pedestrians do have to get around, park their vehicles longwise leaving space on either one side or another to pass, but most park nose first forcing pedestrians out on to the street. And once out there, the next thing you notice is that most of the drivers are stark staring bonkers, driving like maniacs and weaving all over the place with not a thought for who or what might just step out in their path. The cars in themselves are worth a second glance in some cases because, alongside the usual utilitarian models, there are luxury cars of every kind and other vehicles which anywhere else (apart perhaps from Cuba) would be in a transport museum, models of both European and American cars from the fifties and some even earlier!
The rear window of most cars, lorries and buses carries a triumvirate sticker of President Assad, his son Bassel who was killed in a car accident and the younger son who is now heir apparent. So widespread is this practice that there is a joke about it. A child was chosen to be groomed for the secret service and to eventually infiltrate the Israeli Mossad. He was reared as a Jew, spoke Hebrew like a native and, finally, the day dawned when he was deemed to be ready to start his life’s work. However, a short time after he had been dropped in Israel, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities. Once he was returned to Syria, he was interrogated to find out why his mission had been so short-lived after such painstaking preparation. What did you do? Why did they arrest you. I don’t know, the would-be spy replied, I bought a car and they arrested me. How come? Tell us what you did once you bought the car! Well, I got stickers of Nathanyahu and his wife and family and stuck them on the back window, that’s all! When they arrested me, I asked them how they knew I was not an Israeli, and they said the stickers on the car were a dead giveaway and they knew straight away I could only be a Syrian.
The next thing you notice is the dirt and rubbish strewn everywhere - pavements, streets and gardens alike. There are plenty of rubbish bins dotted around on most corners but some people prefer not to use them, depositing their household rubbish in plastic bags at some other point more convenient or to their liking. Others arrive with their scraps in a bucket and simply tip them into the gutter. Another more hazardous eventuality is when the lady on the third floor decides to toss her rubbish down to the bin from her terrace. Usually, of course, she misses, so you have to be pretty smartish about getting out of the way in case one such missile might just end up on your head! Late at night she may also decide to toss the slops left over from supper over the terrace railing and down on to the street below. Jeromimooooo! When people go out for picnics, which they are very fond of doing, they simply leave behind all their discarded waste which they may very well return the following week to sit among as though visiting some mysterious shrine.
It isn’t that there is no rubbish collection. There is. And, apart from the official rubbish truck, armies of boys and men make the rounds on their bicycles or with carts selecting the rubbish they specialize in - tins, bottles, cardboard - which they cart off to some place I have never seen to serve their own purposes. One evening, as I was s tanding on the corner waiting for Robert to come across from the fruit stall, a small cart groaned by with bags of recycleable rubbish piled in the back and at least seven little boys clinging on to very available place, their bicycles crowning the heap. There are also official street sweepers armed with inadequate palm brooms without a long handle, which forces them to bend double as they sweep. They pick up the rubbish with offcuts of cardboard boxes and sometimes with their bare hands. Their labours are sometimes haphazardly carried out, but they are done just the same. However, they are fighting a losing battle with the hordes of people, adults and children alike, whose mission in life seems to be to strew the streets and every surface they cross with rubbish of every kind.
After that, the most striking thing are the kalashnikovs slung over the shoulders of so many armed guards who, in our particular district, are to be found every ten steps or so because of the number of diplomatic residences in the area. Outside every diplomatic residence and official building are little huts where the army guards spend their lives. And I mean spend their lives. Many of them have a narrow bunk where the incumbent guard sleeps and a chair where he spends most of his time. Most have a transistor radio which they listen to incessantly, and some have brought along a wooden box and a television set which they watch in the evenings. Not infrequently a little glass with a bunch of flowers picked from a nearby garden provides a decorative touch to what is in effect their home. Frequently the guard’s friends come along and they play cards to while away the time. On Fridays, or holidays, some of the guards change out of their uniforms and stroll around in “civvies”, but the kalashnikov is their inseparable companion! It can be an incongruous sight to see the kalashnikov slung over the right shoulder and the fingers of the right hand gliding silently over the beads of an Islamic rosary.
Children are the major plague, particularly little boys who immediately rush out the second they see me with the dog and start barking or trying to touch him or, worse, trying to hurt him. Having lost my patience with them now, I simply brook no nonsense and utter an unmistakable prohibition in my best Arabic whichs sends them rushing off. I have come to see that Granny was right when she said, “If you see a cub, give him a crack, for if he hasn’t done harm he’s just about to do it!”.
July 1998
The first thing you notice when you walk the streets of Damascus, or at least Mezze the area where we live, is that you literally have to do just that, because the pavements have been taken over by cars as a car park. Some drivers, considerate enough to remember that pedestrians do have to get around, park their vehicles longwise leaving space on either one side or another to pass, but most park nose first forcing pedestrians out on to the street. And once out there, the next thing you notice is that most of the drivers are stark staring bonkers, driving like maniacs and weaving all over the place with not a thought for who or what might just step out in their path. The cars in themselves are worth a second glance in some cases because, alongside the usual utilitarian models, there are luxury cars of every kind and other vehicles which anywhere else (apart perhaps from Cuba) would be in a transport museum, models of both European and American cars from the fifties and some even earlier!
The rear window of most cars, lorries and buses carries a triumvirate sticker of President Assad, his son Bassel who was killed in a car accident and the younger son who is now heir apparent. So widespread is this practice that there is a joke about it. A child was chosen to be groomed for the secret service and to eventually infiltrate the Israeli Mossad. He was reared as a Jew, spoke Hebrew like a native and, finally, the day dawned when he was deemed to be ready to start his life’s work. However, a short time after he had been dropped in Israel, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities. Once he was returned to Syria, he was interrogated to find out why his mission had been so short-lived after such painstaking preparation. What did you do? Why did they arrest you. I don’t know, the would-be spy replied, I bought a car and they arrested me. How come? Tell us what you did once you bought the car! Well, I got stickers of Nathanyahu and his wife and family and stuck them on the back window, that’s all! When they arrested me, I asked them how they knew I was not an Israeli, and they said the stickers on the car were a dead giveaway and they knew straight away I could only be a Syrian.
The next thing you notice is the dirt and rubbish strewn everywhere - pavements, streets and gardens alike. There are plenty of rubbish bins dotted around on most corners but some people prefer not to use them, depositing their household rubbish in plastic bags at some other point more convenient or to their liking. Others arrive with their scraps in a bucket and simply tip them into the gutter. Another more hazardous eventuality is when the lady on the third floor decides to toss her rubbish down to the bin from her terrace. Usually, of course, she misses, so you have to be pretty smartish about getting out of the way in case one such missile might just end up on your head! Late at night she may also decide to toss the slops left over from supper over the terrace railing and down on to the street below. Jeromimooooo! When people go out for picnics, which they are very fond of doing, they simply leave behind all their discarded waste which they may very well return the following week to sit among as though visiting some mysterious shrine.
It isn’t that there is no rubbish collection. There is. And, apart from the official rubbish truck, armies of boys and men make the rounds on their bicycles or with carts selecting the rubbish they specialize in - tins, bottles, cardboard - which they cart off to some place I have never seen to serve their own purposes. One evening, as I was s tanding on the corner waiting for Robert to come across from the fruit stall, a small cart groaned by with bags of recycleable rubbish piled in the back and at least seven little boys clinging on to very available place, their bicycles crowning the heap. There are also official street sweepers armed with inadequate palm brooms without a long handle, which forces them to bend double as they sweep. They pick up the rubbish with offcuts of cardboard boxes and sometimes with their bare hands. Their labours are sometimes haphazardly carried out, but they are done just the same. However, they are fighting a losing battle with the hordes of people, adults and children alike, whose mission in life seems to be to strew the streets and every surface they cross with rubbish of every kind.
After that, the most striking thing are the kalashnikovs slung over the shoulders of so many armed guards who, in our particular district, are to be found every ten steps or so because of the number of diplomatic residences in the area. Outside every diplomatic residence and official building are little huts where the army guards spend their lives. And I mean spend their lives. Many of them have a narrow bunk where the incumbent guard sleeps and a chair where he spends most of his time. Most have a transistor radio which they listen to incessantly, and some have brought along a wooden box and a television set which they watch in the evenings. Not infrequently a little glass with a bunch of flowers picked from a nearby garden provides a decorative touch to what is in effect their home. Frequently the guard’s friends come along and they play cards to while away the time. On Fridays, or holidays, some of the guards change out of their uniforms and stroll around in “civvies”, but the kalashnikov is their inseparable companion! It can be an incongruous sight to see the kalashnikov slung over the right shoulder and the fingers of the right hand gliding silently over the beads of an Islamic rosary.
Children are the major plague, particularly little boys who immediately rush out the second they see me with the dog and start barking or trying to touch him or, worse, trying to hurt him. Having lost my patience with them now, I simply brook no nonsense and utter an unmistakable prohibition in my best Arabic whichs sends them rushing off. I have come to see that Granny was right when she said, “If you see a cub, give him a crack, for if he hasn’t done harm he’s just about to do it!”.
July 1998
THE MARRIAGE STAKES
THE MARRIAGE STAKES
The day I arrived in Damascus Yahye, the driver, announced that the following Friday he was going with his parents to meet the girl they had chosen to be his wife. Yahye is twenty-six and the chosen bride is sixteen. When he told me, I thought, “OK, this is not an educated family, so ...”
However, I have since learned that this has nothing to do with education or social class or wealth. B., one of the consultants at the centre, is also twenty-six and he has decided that he would like to marry and settle down. He was brought up and studied in Canada and the United States and his father is a university professor. So, having told his family of his desire to marry, his mother made up a list of acceptable, eligible girls and every Friday he and his mother go to visit one of the girls on the list.
The real protagonists in the marriage market are the mothers - on both sides. The boy’s mother makes up her lists and, having done so, makes the initial approach to the mother of the girl. The first question, if the families do not know one another (which they very frequently do not), is “Is your daughter veiled?”. If she is, and the initial tentative telephone approach is successful, then the boy’s mother will arrange to visit the girl’s mother. If this first personal meeting proves positive, then the boy will attend the next meeting. The girl will not appear at first but leave about ten minutes for the mothers to explore family lineage, financial position and other aspects of mutual interest, and then she will make her appearance to serve tea. This gives her and the boy the chance to catch a glimpse of one another. The girl, even if she is veiled, should contrive during this meeting to uncover part of her leg so that the degree of whiteness of her skin can be appreciated.
What happens after that depends on the ortodoxy of the families. If the family is really orthodox, the second meeting may not take place at all because the marriage transaction is a purely economic one and, if the terms are right, the two mothers will come to an agreement. The two fathers will then meet to size one another up and, in some cases, no more than one week may elapse between the initial meeting and the marriage ceremony itself!
If the families are more liberal and the girl’s opinion is taken into account, and if the girl raises no serious objections, then the pair may be allowed to meet at the girl’s home to get to know one another a little better before proceeding with a marriage contract. In such cases perhaps three months may elapse before the marriage ceremony. Longer engagements usually only take place when the bride-to-be has been betrothed when she is still under marriageable age.
Often a religious marriage takes place on paper which means that the Islamic judge prepares a marriage document although no ceremony has taken place and the couple still live in their parents’ homes. This gives them the opportunity to meet more openly as this is regarded as a formal engagement. Sometimes, during this period, they discover that they are absolutely incompatible and a divorce must take place although in practice they have not been married.
If the initial encounters lead to a tacit engagement, the boy gives the girl a gift of jewellery. The value of US$3,000 is considered adequate for this first gift. If a formal agreement is reached, then a similar gift of jewellery to the value of about US$10,000 is given. If the marriage does not take place in the end, the girl usually returns the gifts because, if she were to keep them, her reputation would be ruined.
Marriage is really not just between the two people involved but a marriage of the two clans. This family component can lead to many problems and, according to the young people we know, most divorces are the result of family interference on one or both sides. It is also said that summer is the marriage season and winter the divorce season. Summer is a popular time for marriages because, when girls finish school, they become eligible for marriage.
In some cases a couple might meet either at school or at university but, until they are in a position to approach their families and request permission to marry or at least the families’ blessing, their relationship must remain clandestine, because any girl seen in the company of a man who is not a family member, her fiancé or husband immediately loses her reputation. This can cause friction too, because the young man is usually unwilling to approach his future father-in-law with such a request until his financial position is such that he can offer the girl a standard of living comparable to the one she enjoys in her parents’ home.
The custom of arranging lists and making visits to choose the future bride is not, it would appear, so common in the Latakia area in the north. The tailpiece to Yahye’s tale is that the girl decided that she would rather continue her studies after all.
One afternoon, Robert found two of the engineers conferring in low tones in the corridor. What are you two up to? We’re talking about what we’re going to do this evening. Are you going out jogging (They are both trying to lose weight as they are in the marriage market) or don’t tell me you have date?! This last remark was made in jest, but, lo and behold, they looked at one another and said, Well, yes, but we’ve just discovered that we both have an appointment with the same girl, so we’re trying to work out who should go. You go. No, you go! ....
The chief victims of this system are the women, but, ironically, it is the women who are the perpetrators and continuers of the very system which keeps them tied. In a way it is understandable, because the mother is the major player in the marriage game and, if the system were to change, she would find herself without a role and her importance as social go-between and maintainer of clan and tribal relationships would disappear so, unwittingly or not, she carries on the oppression of her own kind. B. summed up my feelings on the matter when he said “I’m glad I don’t have a sister. I would hate her to have to go through this”. However, most men are happy for the system to continue. A small number, such as B ‘s elder brother, refuse to play the game and he is seriously considering returning to Canada so that he can choose a wife and live a different kind of marriage. The brother of another young man we know refuses to return preferring to make his own way in Argentina.
The law forbids mixed marriages between the different religions but a Moslem man can marry a non-Moslem woman so long as she is a member of one of the monotheistic religions. She, of course,must convert to Islam. He could not, for instance, marry a Hindu. A Moslem woman, on the other hand, cannot marry a non-Moslem man unless he converts to Islam before the marriage.
Among the minorities, marriages tend to take place within the particular ethnic or religious community. The Greek Orthodox marry among themselves, as do the Armenians. Interestingly, the Circassian minority, who are Moslem, marry among themselves also and tend not to marry Moslems from the majority Arab community. As one girl told me, “No, we want to keep our minority pure, and we want to speak our own language at home and to our children. Anyway, you can’t marry an Arab. If you came home late one evening, instead of asking you if you were tired, he would ask you what man you had been with and then there would be a fight. No, no, we marry among ourselves”.
In general, inter-group marriage is frowned upon by social custom and, as is the case the world over, religious intolerance is one of the major causes of heartbreak for many people. One case we know of is a young, widely travelled Sunni man who met and fell in love with a girl from the Druze community. As religious particularisms are not important to him, he would be quite happy to convert to the particular branch of Islam which the Druze occupy, but that is out of the question because, as one of the tenets of Druze philosophy is salvation through a series of reincarnations, they believe that the Druze community is limited in size and, therefore, conversion is not acceptable. This poses a major problem for the young couple because, if the girl were to renounce her Druze status and convert to Sunni Islam, she would be pronounced dead by her family - or worse A possible solution to regularize their situation in legal terms could be a civil marriage, but civil marriage is not contemplated in the Syrian legal system so they would have to travel abroad to be married somewhere else. The upshot of the matter is that they are living together with all the social stigma for the girl that this step entails. However, it allows her family to pretend that nothing is happening and to keep her within the family circle. When she goes to visit, she must go alone. And all this when the family actually like and respect the young man in question! However, this is not a specifically Syrian or indeed Moslem problem but one which rears its ugly head the world over when two religious communities meet but will not accept one another.
The other day in the Arabic class, the subject of marriage came up, first of all as a joke. Then one of the two Italian ladies, who is married to a Syrian, said to the other “Fouad (her brother-in-law) wants to get married. Maybe Maha (the teacher) would be interested.” Fouad is a widower of 46 with two small children. The matter was explained to Maha who then asked whether he was a Moslem and then whether he was a Sunni. Yes. Then, out of the question. She is from Suweida and a Druze. Although the Italian lady is married here and has a grown-up family, she was not aware of the inter-group difficulties, so I explained about that to her. Then Maha illustrated the point with a story about a friend of hers, a Druze, who fell in love with and married a Sunni. When she became pregnant, her own family cut her throat!
July 1998
The day I arrived in Damascus Yahye, the driver, announced that the following Friday he was going with his parents to meet the girl they had chosen to be his wife. Yahye is twenty-six and the chosen bride is sixteen. When he told me, I thought, “OK, this is not an educated family, so ...”
However, I have since learned that this has nothing to do with education or social class or wealth. B., one of the consultants at the centre, is also twenty-six and he has decided that he would like to marry and settle down. He was brought up and studied in Canada and the United States and his father is a university professor. So, having told his family of his desire to marry, his mother made up a list of acceptable, eligible girls and every Friday he and his mother go to visit one of the girls on the list.
The real protagonists in the marriage market are the mothers - on both sides. The boy’s mother makes up her lists and, having done so, makes the initial approach to the mother of the girl. The first question, if the families do not know one another (which they very frequently do not), is “Is your daughter veiled?”. If she is, and the initial tentative telephone approach is successful, then the boy’s mother will arrange to visit the girl’s mother. If this first personal meeting proves positive, then the boy will attend the next meeting. The girl will not appear at first but leave about ten minutes for the mothers to explore family lineage, financial position and other aspects of mutual interest, and then she will make her appearance to serve tea. This gives her and the boy the chance to catch a glimpse of one another. The girl, even if she is veiled, should contrive during this meeting to uncover part of her leg so that the degree of whiteness of her skin can be appreciated.
What happens after that depends on the ortodoxy of the families. If the family is really orthodox, the second meeting may not take place at all because the marriage transaction is a purely economic one and, if the terms are right, the two mothers will come to an agreement. The two fathers will then meet to size one another up and, in some cases, no more than one week may elapse between the initial meeting and the marriage ceremony itself!
If the families are more liberal and the girl’s opinion is taken into account, and if the girl raises no serious objections, then the pair may be allowed to meet at the girl’s home to get to know one another a little better before proceeding with a marriage contract. In such cases perhaps three months may elapse before the marriage ceremony. Longer engagements usually only take place when the bride-to-be has been betrothed when she is still under marriageable age.
Often a religious marriage takes place on paper which means that the Islamic judge prepares a marriage document although no ceremony has taken place and the couple still live in their parents’ homes. This gives them the opportunity to meet more openly as this is regarded as a formal engagement. Sometimes, during this period, they discover that they are absolutely incompatible and a divorce must take place although in practice they have not been married.
If the initial encounters lead to a tacit engagement, the boy gives the girl a gift of jewellery. The value of US$3,000 is considered adequate for this first gift. If a formal agreement is reached, then a similar gift of jewellery to the value of about US$10,000 is given. If the marriage does not take place in the end, the girl usually returns the gifts because, if she were to keep them, her reputation would be ruined.
Marriage is really not just between the two people involved but a marriage of the two clans. This family component can lead to many problems and, according to the young people we know, most divorces are the result of family interference on one or both sides. It is also said that summer is the marriage season and winter the divorce season. Summer is a popular time for marriages because, when girls finish school, they become eligible for marriage.
In some cases a couple might meet either at school or at university but, until they are in a position to approach their families and request permission to marry or at least the families’ blessing, their relationship must remain clandestine, because any girl seen in the company of a man who is not a family member, her fiancé or husband immediately loses her reputation. This can cause friction too, because the young man is usually unwilling to approach his future father-in-law with such a request until his financial position is such that he can offer the girl a standard of living comparable to the one she enjoys in her parents’ home.
The custom of arranging lists and making visits to choose the future bride is not, it would appear, so common in the Latakia area in the north. The tailpiece to Yahye’s tale is that the girl decided that she would rather continue her studies after all.
One afternoon, Robert found two of the engineers conferring in low tones in the corridor. What are you two up to? We’re talking about what we’re going to do this evening. Are you going out jogging (They are both trying to lose weight as they are in the marriage market) or don’t tell me you have date?! This last remark was made in jest, but, lo and behold, they looked at one another and said, Well, yes, but we’ve just discovered that we both have an appointment with the same girl, so we’re trying to work out who should go. You go. No, you go! ....
The chief victims of this system are the women, but, ironically, it is the women who are the perpetrators and continuers of the very system which keeps them tied. In a way it is understandable, because the mother is the major player in the marriage game and, if the system were to change, she would find herself without a role and her importance as social go-between and maintainer of clan and tribal relationships would disappear so, unwittingly or not, she carries on the oppression of her own kind. B. summed up my feelings on the matter when he said “I’m glad I don’t have a sister. I would hate her to have to go through this”. However, most men are happy for the system to continue. A small number, such as B ‘s elder brother, refuse to play the game and he is seriously considering returning to Canada so that he can choose a wife and live a different kind of marriage. The brother of another young man we know refuses to return preferring to make his own way in Argentina.
The law forbids mixed marriages between the different religions but a Moslem man can marry a non-Moslem woman so long as she is a member of one of the monotheistic religions. She, of course,must convert to Islam. He could not, for instance, marry a Hindu. A Moslem woman, on the other hand, cannot marry a non-Moslem man unless he converts to Islam before the marriage.
Among the minorities, marriages tend to take place within the particular ethnic or religious community. The Greek Orthodox marry among themselves, as do the Armenians. Interestingly, the Circassian minority, who are Moslem, marry among themselves also and tend not to marry Moslems from the majority Arab community. As one girl told me, “No, we want to keep our minority pure, and we want to speak our own language at home and to our children. Anyway, you can’t marry an Arab. If you came home late one evening, instead of asking you if you were tired, he would ask you what man you had been with and then there would be a fight. No, no, we marry among ourselves”.
In general, inter-group marriage is frowned upon by social custom and, as is the case the world over, religious intolerance is one of the major causes of heartbreak for many people. One case we know of is a young, widely travelled Sunni man who met and fell in love with a girl from the Druze community. As religious particularisms are not important to him, he would be quite happy to convert to the particular branch of Islam which the Druze occupy, but that is out of the question because, as one of the tenets of Druze philosophy is salvation through a series of reincarnations, they believe that the Druze community is limited in size and, therefore, conversion is not acceptable. This poses a major problem for the young couple because, if the girl were to renounce her Druze status and convert to Sunni Islam, she would be pronounced dead by her family - or worse A possible solution to regularize their situation in legal terms could be a civil marriage, but civil marriage is not contemplated in the Syrian legal system so they would have to travel abroad to be married somewhere else. The upshot of the matter is that they are living together with all the social stigma for the girl that this step entails. However, it allows her family to pretend that nothing is happening and to keep her within the family circle. When she goes to visit, she must go alone. And all this when the family actually like and respect the young man in question! However, this is not a specifically Syrian or indeed Moslem problem but one which rears its ugly head the world over when two religious communities meet but will not accept one another.
The other day in the Arabic class, the subject of marriage came up, first of all as a joke. Then one of the two Italian ladies, who is married to a Syrian, said to the other “Fouad (her brother-in-law) wants to get married. Maybe Maha (the teacher) would be interested.” Fouad is a widower of 46 with two small children. The matter was explained to Maha who then asked whether he was a Moslem and then whether he was a Sunni. Yes. Then, out of the question. She is from Suweida and a Druze. Although the Italian lady is married here and has a grown-up family, she was not aware of the inter-group difficulties, so I explained about that to her. Then Maha illustrated the point with a story about a friend of hers, a Druze, who fell in love with and married a Sunni. When she became pregnant, her own family cut her throat!
July 1998
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