On arrival at the groom’s house after either kinds of wedding, the bride is immediately ushered into the new room by her mother and the mother of the groom, and sometimes by aunts and great-aunts as well. The men congregate in the mudhif or the main reception room of the family, and small groups or even the entire family of the bride or groom leap to their feet from time to time to sing and dance hosas, songs in which the leader makes up a verse that is then repeated by the other singers. Men lift and stamp their feet in rhythm with the words, swaying in unison backwards and forwards or in a circle as they perform the ancient dance. The women gather in the kitchen area where they also sing and dance and, in addition, ululate. The groom’s father carefully checks the dowry: it is as dishonorable for him to be fooled as it is for the bride’s father to try to fool him.
The bride, mother of the bride, mother of the groom, and sometimes an aunt or two retire to the bride and groom’s new bedroom, where they await the groom. When the groom enters the wedding chamber, a silence falls over the entire party. The two mothers remove the girl’s undergarments and hold her legs apart. The groom then takes a length of white cloth prepared for him by his mother, wraps it around his index finger, and breaks his bride’s hymen, decorating the cloth with her virginal blood. Rumor has it that a chicken is always kept in the wedding chamber in case the bride does not bleed freely enough, for there is a tendency to equate the quantity of blood with the quality of the virginity. The groom leaves the room to display the cloth to the men while his mother shows it to the women. Gunshots erupt amidst piercing ululations and loud hosas. The groom reenters the chamber alone to consummate the marriage and then returns to the party to be again greeted with ululation, hosas, music, and song. The bride is waited on hand and foot by her mother-in-law and new relatives. Her own mother and family will not see her again for an entire week so that she can adjust without interference to her new family and new life.
A husband can divorce his wife any time for any reason. If the husband has a legitimate reason for doing so, such as adultery, barrenness, bad behavior, or misuse of household money, he has the right to the return of the bride price from the bride’s family. Divorcees usually return to live with their natal families and have few prospects for an additional marriage. Adulterous wives are usually secretly killed after their return. Both their own family and the family of their deceased husband, on the other hand, treat widows, with great respect.
Looking Out for Others
Although the Quran permits a man up to four wives at the same time, multiple wives are fairly unusual in the al-Hiba area. Among the villagers, most men who take second wives do so as a way of maintaining family bonds. Should a man die, for instance, leaving behind a wife and children, it is not unusual for his brother to marry the widow. This marriage is not one of love but a very important device for preserving family connections and making certain that the deceased’s wife and children are provided for in an appropriate manner. The next largest group of men with multiple wives consists of families in which the first wife convinces the husband that he needs a second wife. Two wives, of course, meant that women’s duties in the household could be shared, and the first wife would have only half as much work as before. This is not to say that there was not the occasional marriage of passion. These were arranged by the husband and were likely to stimulate jealousy, competition, and other unhealthy emotions in each of the two wives. Other men in the village seldom envied the home life of a husband who took a second wife for love.
People are bound by rules of generosity to look after each other’s needs. Widows, old men, and other needy people have the right to ask younger members of the village for help in arduous tasks, and the younger person has a strict moral responsibility to comply. Helping someone else is very much in a person’s own interest. If he refuses he will not be able to find anyone to help him when he is in need of assistance. There are other regulatory devices in the community that keep self-centered acts to a minimum. One such is the function of gossip in so tight-knit a community and the stigmatization that results if egocentric behavior persists. Only those who live in impervious shells can pretend that they are not the focus of gossip for their antisocial behavior. Craftspeople, in addition to providing a setting for gossip in the places where they ply their trade, often afford a forum for the discussion of an individual’s over-all behavior in the community (see p. 184–5, 243). As both these proceedings are entirely public and generate comment from other members of the community, their messages are difficult to avoid.
Most impressive is the compassion with which mentally deficient people are cared for in the village. Looking out for such a person, whether an adult or a child, is the concern of everyone in the community. Whoever sees a mentally challenged individual in trouble drops everything to help him. Persons with such disabilities are thought to be touched by God and are observed and listened to with special interest, for who can tell what this special one might be trying to foretell or proclaim. As a result the afflicted person has round-the-clock care and a very special social status in the community. They were looked upon with both pride and a bit of apprehension, and far from being treated as outsiders or monstrosities, were treated with respect and an element of awe.
Education for Life
Aspirations of most young people in the late 1960s and 1970s were somewhat limited. The main goal of adolescents seemed to be to grow up to be like their mothers and fathers, but only if their parents had honor. Young people’s practical education consisted of learning how to accomplish the expectations of their same-sex family members. Industry and responsibility were stressed. Girls learned to prepare food from scratch, to manage household chores like cleaning the compound, laundering, and making dung patties for fuel, to collect reeds, to care for chickens or turkeys, to assist in the harvest, and, perhaps most important of all, to guard the family resources. Women had to assure that resources lasted from one harvest (or, rarely, one paycheck) to the next. Girls also learned proper behavior, which included the subtle influencing of male behavior and the outcome of events. Boys learned agricultural methods, the care of livestock, fishing and hunting, proper village behavior—especially the etiquette for participation in discussions in the mudhif—and the special crafts, if any, of their fathers. During their training, children learned what it means to be a man or woman through close and extended association with the parent of their own sex.
Children go to work at a very early age, learning and doing at once. There are many helpful jobs a child of seven or eight can do—herding animals, looking for eggs, and helping to plant or cook. Through constant association with their father or mother children learn their proper roles in the household and the village; they learn to be useful and to contribute to the family’s well being. Children as young as 7 or 8 usually participate in serious family decisions; they are very much a part of the family unit, providing services and sometimes wages which help to make the family economically viable.
Formal schools for both boys and girls, provided by the central government, are within walking distance of most villages. These schools teach the skills of reading, writing, and figuring, and they give students some knowledge of their government and some understanding of the Quran. The most common method of learning is to recite the lesson aloud. Foreign teachers, usually from Egypt, almost inevitably staff schools and children attend them for several years: girls until about 8 or 9 and boys until about 12 or 13. Local parents curtail their daughters’ education because they are concerned about the girls’ honor. Bright boys are able to graduate from the country schools to regular or technical secondary schools in nearby towns.
A major rite for boys is circumcision. In two of the villages around al-Hiba in the late 1960s circumcision took place near the age of puberty, somewhat later than in most places in the Middle East. Children expect it and prepared for it by mastering self-control. The local barber usually performs the operation in the village square. He uses a razor, but no anesthetic. Stoicism is required: boys are expected not to wince or make a sound or even let a tear inadvertently escape their eye. By showing no signs of pain during the operation, boys prove themselves brave men. Unfortunately, infections often set in because the procedure was carried out under far from sterile conditions. Some of these infections were serious enough to cause deformity or even death. Once the magic of our antibiotic