THE WOMEN IN BETWEEN

By A’isha Azar

The Woman In Between is a series about the lives of Arab women in America who are living in two cultures simultaneously. Their names have been changed, but all events related in this series are true.

Installment 6- Nadra

I am having dinner tonight with my wonderful friend, Nadra. I have come to love her in the short time that she has lived here. Her mind is lively; she is warm and friendly and has a subtle and charming sense of humor. She appears low key but beneath the surface is a woman of amazing strength of character.

Nadra is the daughter of an American mother and a Saudi Arabian father. She has lived all of her life between cultures and has legal citizenship in both countries. Her family lives in Saudi Arabia and Europe and they also have traveled to the United States frequently. Nadra is able to live in and deal successfully with the cultural differences. She has intelligence and the ability to observe and comprehend that everywhere she finds herself, she will find good and bad. This is certainly not true of everyone. I have often found myself in the position where I must defend one culture to another.

Nadra has been brought up in an atmosphere of wealth and privilege, yet I have never even once seen her be condescending to anyone. Wedad and I, and our other friends liked her immediately and she feels very much at home among us. She has brought her own special qualities to our group of women and we are happy to know her!

Nadra was married two years ago. Her husband is also her first cousin, which is not an uncommon match in both Muslim and Christian Arab traditions. Her husband is her father’s sister’s son. He and I have known each other some six years. It is often a contentious relationship because we see the world quite differently. He thinks it revolves around him and I do not. In spite of his many, many faults, there are aspects of his personality that I can appreciate and we have a rocky but somehow sustainable connection. Wedad and I have repeated to each other very often that we think Nadra is way too good for the likes of him.

When her husband approached Nadra’s family about marrying her, her father said to him, “I think that you have no job. Why should I let you marry my daughter? How will you take care of her?” This was very important in the man’s mind. Nadra is his oldest child from a beloved wife who is now dead. He has cherished her and wants her husband to do the same. He received assurances from his nephew that he did have a job in the United States, with a law firm. This seemed to make her father happy enough accept a marriage agreement, and later, a wedding. What happened to this job in the U.S. is a mystery to all of us. Her husband may have given his future father-in-law a false impression…

Nadra’s husband has a Master’s degree, but as yet, we have never seen him work. He is not willing to even consider employment beneath his education level, no matter the condition of their finances. The truth is that this man is in his mid-thirties (twelve years older than Nadra), and probably has never held down a job of any sort. He either does not or will not understand that a college degree without work experience is like a day without sunshine for those who are seeking gainful employment. We all agree that he should be willing to take any kind of work right now, for the experience even more than for the money.

Nadra, meanwhile, went out and found work as soon as she realized that they were going to need some income as soon as possible. She took the first job that made itself available so she could get some work experience. She says, “I would like to just go to school, but this is what I need to do right now.” She is much more gracious about it than I could ever be. But, her attitude has paid off for her and now she has a better job in a different firm. The new position pays her more money and the working conditions are far more pleasant. She has a good benefits package, and she also is going to be able to continue her education. She has a Bachelor’s degree, but wants to get her master’s in Business Administration.

The marriage is not going well. The fact that he is not working is only a part of the problem. He is immature and in some ways, emotionally abusive. There are things about the financial situation that bother Nadra as much if not more than the money issue. In Islamic culture, it is entirely the responsibility of the husband to support the family. She sees his not working as a form of disrespect for his wife.

I have occasionally seen him take a very unpleasant tone with her over some ridiculous thing. There are many examples but one stands out for me because of all of its deeper implications. Nadra sometimes comes with me to the restaurant where I dance. He has told her in a most condescending way, “You had better not get up and dance.” He does this kind of thing as a reminder to her that he considers himself to be in control of her and let her know her “place”. He knows she would not get up, but he feels an ugly need to exert his authority over her. Of course, she would not get up and dance even if every other female in the restaurant was doing so. She conducts herself like an honorable Saudi female and does not draw undue attention to herself in public.

Not only does Nadra’s husband not work, but he often goes out with his friends all night. Sometimes he leaves the house at 7:00 in the evening and she might not see him until twelve hours later. She worried about it very much at first, but I have noticed lately that she is cultivating a separatist attitude. She says, “He knows its wrong. He is not acting like a husband should act. But all I can really do is to accept it for now…but not forever.” I know that this is not what she envisioned for herself. She deserves so much more than this poor excuse for a marriage. She does not complain, but instead does what she can do to make sure she is taking care of her own responsibilities. She cooks, cleans and behaves herself in a respectable manner. She is in the process of learning how to take care of a household because she grew up with servants who took care of all the things that the average American housewife does herself. She is used to maids, chauffeurs, gardeners and cooks. Now she does all of the things herself that were done by servants in the house of her father. She does not complain that he stays out all night and sleeps all day, and does not condescend to help around the house. If I were his wife, I would be relaxing in a nice, clean jail cell while he reposed in his grave.

In talking about the employment problem at dinner, I ask, “How do you think it makes him feel, not having a job, not doing the things that he should do?”

Nadra thinks about it and replies, “I don’t think he feels very good. He can’t act like this and still respect himself. He knows its just wrong. I know that right now it is harder for him to find work because of the terrorist situation and everything, but he is not even trying very hard. He gets mad at me like it’s my fault he feels bad. But I am not sorry about his feelings because he is lazy. He also tries to make me feel bad and he tries to control me. Like, he wants me to wear hijab (the scarf that covers the hair of Muslim women) when we go out. If he was a strict Muslim, I would do it out of respect for his beliefs, but he is not, so I tell him no.”

Nadra has been extremely patient, thinking that he might grow up, but she has begun to hint to her stepmother, with whom she has a very loving relationship, that things are not going very well. They have discussed the situation, but have not really talked to her father about it in detail. I ask her why not. The man, I am sure, would be horrified it he knew how she was living.

Nadra says that she does not want to worry or embarrass her father. He would feel extremely responsible if he knew how bad this match is turning out to be. The little that he has heard has made him so angry that he is not speaking to her husband. I try to put myself in his shoes and imagine what it might be like to know my child is unhappy in her marriage because of my decision.

Another important issue for Nadra and the rest of the family is that the rumor mill in Saudi Arabia has begun to grind. His side of the family seem to be preparing a defense strategy in the likely event of a divorce, and have starting spreading the word back home that things might not be going well in the marriage. They are slanting information so that it will appear that their son is blameless, meaning, of course, that a divorce would be Nadra’s fault. She wants to give the marriage every last chance before she subjects her family to the embarrassment of having their names dragged through the mouths of those who love to speak viciously. She explains, “There are people in Saudi who are the worst gossips. They will take any little thing and just ruin a person’s reputation. Like right now there are women who work in banks and they have to work around men. Every single one of them has rumors about them, spreading around that they are going out with the men at their jobs. All of those girls have ruined reputations now. No one will want them even it they are totally innocent. The gossip back there can completely ruin someone’s life even if it isn’t true.”

She wants to spare her family this kind of experience if she can possibly help it. I tell her that I consider her to be acting in a way that is incredibly self-sacrificing and that I hope her family is worth her going through it all in order to save them some embarrassment. She thinks about this and says, “Well, I’m going to get my Master’s degree, and then…we will see…”

ã A’isha Azar 2001