reams of Despass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

Fatima Mernissi D

New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994. 242 pages, illustratc LC 93-39523. ISBN 0-201-62649-7 $23 hardcover.

Review by Louise Leonard University of Florida

oroccan sociologist Mernissi, born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, M gives us a peek at the world of women in purdah. Through vignettes from her childhood, we see how the womenfolk carried on their daily lives behind the walls. She reveals the convoluted webs of deceit and power plays, as well as the harmony that existed when the rights of others were respected. The invisible barriers of custom were seldom crossed so that the delicate balance of the social system remained intact.

Here were played out the elaborate ruses the women used against the men to gain access to the key t o the forbidden radio, or even to escape to the street. The children learned to play power games, too, and were bribed by their elders into keeping secrets and taking delight in the naughtiness of tricking the menfolk. Enter- tainment consisted of singing, dancing, and acting out scenes from rich Arab literature or history. There is warmth in such a life.

Mernissi brings out the differences between the city women and country women. Her maternal grandparents were country folk; her father’s people were “fellah”-city folk from the landowner segment of the society. The scenario takes on an entirely different form in the

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country, for there the women did not need veils to protect them from the world and had other standards of freedom. They could ride horses, swim in ponds, and have picnics under the watchful eyes of the family eunuchs.

Women always played an important role in Islamic history, not only as lawyers, writers, poets, even soldiers, (Tamou, of Mernissi’s household, was in Abdel Krim’s ranks). As she does in her book The Veil and the Male Elite: a Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (Addison-Wesley, 1991), Mernissi argues that isolation of women does not have its justification in the tenets ofIslam but is the result of biased interpretation of the faith to suit the desires of men. She feels that women cannot obtain true rights if reconciling orthodoxy with those rights is left entirely to men.

Moroccan women’s roles began to change when the French invaded and upset the social system. Their bare-faced women had the freedom to mix openly with men. Thus, in Morocco at that time, a tug ofwar grew between the traditional and the Western. An often- asked question in her harem was whether the “hudud,” the invisible frontier, was made to protect women or to keep them dominated. The women were divided on that question. Fatima’s mother yearned for more freedom and privacy in a home of her own while others felt protected by their status.

In Morocco that problem was somewhat solved by the National- ist leaders, who opposed the French occupation. As Morocco edged towards independence from French domination, the new leaders generally had only one wife. The problem of bringing Islam into line with Western culture was further helped along by Sultan Moham- med V, who changed his title to King and raised his children in the Western way. His daughter Aisha wore both modern and traditional dress and gave speeches in both French and Arabic. She also spoke on women’s liberation and recommended adopting features of both worlds as the way to bring about change.

The Nationalists did not altogether bless the nuclear family. The book reveals the inner workings of an extended family system that includes divorced and widowed aunts, relatives with their children, and additional wives and slaves. The number varied with the amount of conflict in their lives, and all occupied a maze of small rooms. Slavery was also to come into question. Although the conno- tation in that society differs from ours, many of the co-wives had been purchased in the slave markets, and when freed by the French, they had no other home to go to.

As the Frenchimposed their culture, the transitional people had

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to assimilate both cultures in order to survive. The acculturation of the child consisted of learning the limits of each society. The adept child, like Mernissi, could be happy, but there was another element at work as well. Those who changed belonged to both cultures and to neither.

With the interest in women’s studies today, the number of recent books on women’s lives in the harems of the Middle East is not surprising. Notable are Sattareh Farman-Farmian’s Daughter of Persia: a Woman’s Journey from Her Father’s Harem through the Islamic Revolution (Crown, 1992; Anchor Books, 1993) and Jean Sasson’s two popular works,Princess: a True Story ofLife behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia (Morrow, 1992) andPrincess Sultana’s Daugh- ters(Doubleday, 1994; Thorndike, 1995). The Syrian feminist writer Rana Kabbani also attempts to draw an accurate picture of Syrian life for Westerners. These feminist writers all stress that the new generation will have some relief from the oppression that stifles women’s lives today.

Dreams of Trespass is a good personal memoir of the inner workings of a society in flux as experienced by those undergoing change. The black and white photographs, however, do not do justice to the majestic Moroccan architecture with its delicately carved moldings and elaborately tiled courtyards, nor do they portray the living quarters with their comfortable stuffed sofas, low tea tables, luxurious carpets, and gaily-colored, filmy dresses of the women. Exquisite Moroccan art deserves better.

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