Speak Bird Speak Again (6 page)

Occasionally,
however, endogamy is disruptive of family unity. When, for example,
one of two brothers living together in the same family has a son, and
the other a daughter, these offspring are expected to marry. But if
for some reason either set of parents obstructs the marriage,
conflict is bound to ensue. If they do not marry, then something is
considered to be wrong with one of them (Tale 21). In this respect,
as with polygyny, the tales provide a critique of the culture,
because they do not automatically reflect the prevailing view that
first-cousin marriage is best. In Tale 21 a young man passes over
seven of his first cousins, all of whom prove nasty and vindictive
when he marries a "stranger." And in Tale 25 two sets of
marriages are compared, one in which a maligned wife is actually
faithful to her husband, the other in which three cousins in a row,
though protesting their faithfulness, turn out to be licentious and
unfaithful to their shared husband.

The
two issues discussed thus far, polygyny and endogamy, are
fundamentally related to the third feature of the Palestinian
extended family, patrilocality. A woman may marry outside her family,
but her in-laws will always consider her a stranger because she does
not belong to the patrilineal network of relationships that define
social identity for them: she is not one of them. Thus, given a
choice, a woman will always prefer to stay as close to her paternal
family as possible (we shall see why in our discussion of
brother/sister relationships below). For unlike endogamy, which does
not require but merely favors first-cousin marriage, patrilocality
leaves the newlyweds no choice: the bride must move into the
household of her husband. This requirement, as can be immediately
perceived, has major implications for our understanding of women and
their behavior in the tales. At no time in her life is a woman
considered to live in her own space. When she is single, she lives in
the household of her father; after marriage, in that of her husband.
In the tales patrilocality is taken for granted and is not questioned
like polygyny, although in one fantasy (Tale 44) the husband, who has
just married the king's daughter, lives with her in a palace given to
them by her father.

Not
only in kinship and space is the woman turned into the Other, but in
other important areas of social behavior as well, such as the related
subjects of family economy and the structure of family authority.
Both of these spheres will be discussed in detail later; here we will
focus on the woman's place in the structure of the family itself. The
backbone of the family is a set of brothers who have grown up
together and by adulthood have found their own places within the
family. In the early stages of the family's formation, and before the
brothers are married, they share a common goal - namely, the unity
and solidarity of the family, which they recognize as the basis for
their economic existence and social identity. As a unit, it also
becomes their shelter and their source of strength (izwe) against the
outside world. Wives are brought into the family as attachments to
the brothers. If they are not first cousins, they come into an alien
environment in which they are considered strangers. Their role is
therefore assumed to be divisive, aimed at splitting the family up so
they can form their own separate families. Thus a married woman, too,
becomes the Other, for she pulls the man away from the orbit of the
family as son and brother and into her own orbit as husband. Because
she is perceived as a threat, her coming into the family is generally
viewed with apprehension. We have several examples of this syndrome
in the tales, the most outstanding being Tales 2 ("The Woman Who
Married Her Son") and 7 ("The Orphans' Cow"). The
conflict in these tales, in which a wife is victimized by her
mother-in-law, is generated from the contradictory role a wife is
supposed to play in the network of relationships within the family.
The tales in these cases draw their material directly from life.

Just
because, by virtue of their gender, women do not form part of the kin
group does not, however, mean that they have no power in Palestinian
society. On the contrary, the power of the Other is at least equal to
that of "self"; the difference is merely one of
perspective. That power may express itself in various ways, the
telling of tales being one of them. Women also have the power of
their sexuality (see below), as we see in nearly all the tales (e.g.,
Tales 2, 5, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 25, 35). Indeed, the tales
themselves show us the power women have over men and each other: most
of the tales have grammatically feminine titles, many of which are
women's names (Tales 3, 13, 17, 18, 20, 26, 27, 31, 33, 42, 43), and
even those that do not have feminine titles, such as Tales 14 and 43
("Sackcloth" and "The Rich Man and the Poor Man"),
concern women as the major characters. In many tales women instigate
action, while the men are often passive (e.g., Tales 1, 15, 27, 29).
Furthermore, the exigencies of the patriarchal system require people
to prefer sons over daughters. Male children are valued beyond all
other values, as a popular proverb confirms: "Pamper your son,
and he'll benefit you; pamper your daughter, and she'll bring you
shame" (dallil ibnak binfaak; dallil bintak bithinak). In the
tales the mother's wish is almost always for a daughter (Tales 1, 8,
23). In short, these tales almost always concern, not heroes, but
heroines: mothers, daughters, and wives.

Are
the women indulging in fantasy here, in wish fulfillment? We think
not. No doubt an element of fantasy is involved, as is in all
folk-tales. But if our hypothesis is correct and the tales do present
a portrait of the culture, then their treatment of women must contain
a large measure. of truth, as anyone familiar with Arab society would
confirm. Besides, the position of Otherness in which women are cast
endows them with objectivity; they observe the society and weave
plots for the folktales from the materials of their daily experience.
As the proverb quoted earlier says, "The household of the
husband is an education." Older women, especially those past
child-beating age, have been through a complete cycle of life in the
midst of extended families that could have as many as thirty members
ranging from infancy to old age - a very good school indeed. Although
we shall return to this subject in our discussion of sexuality, it is
relevant here to look at the connection between women's social
position and the almost scabrous tone of the tales. When women are
past childbearing age, they are considered asexual and hence beyond
the operative social taboos concerning speech and other forms of
outwardly acceptable politeness. Omitted from the formal kinship
structure, women are left to define their roles in society
themselves. They do so through the tales, and in other forms of
folklore that in Palestine are traditionally their domain:
embroidery, basket weaving, pot making, and verbal arts like wedding
songs and laments for the dead. Women provide a large measure of the
creative and artistic energy in the society, as these folktales amply
demonstrate.

We can
better comprehend the social position of the tellers if we consider
how authority is managed in the society. Authority devolves upon the
individual on the basis of three criteria: sex, age, and position in
the family. The greatest authority lies in the male head of the
family, who combines all three: he has authority over every member of
his family. Women, of course, do not benefit from the criterion of
sex, but they do from the other two. By virtue of her position
relative to her husband, the wife of the patriarch has authority over
all the females in the family. Similarly, the wife of the eldest
brother has authority over the wives of the younger brothers, even
though some of them may be older than she is. Old age has authority
because it commands respect and obedience. Frequently reiterated
proverbs help instill this obedience in the minds of the young, such
as "He who sees no good in the old will see none in the new"
('illi malos xer ib-atiqo, malos xer bi-jdido) and "A month
older than you, a whole age wiser" ('akbar minnak ib-saher,
'axbar minnak ib-daher). Therefore, by the time they have become
mature tellers, women have acquired not only wisdom and experience in
life, but a certain amount of authority as well. This authority is
reflected in the tales in the directness of approach, the earthiness
of tone, and the concision of narration.

Before
we begin our discussion of family structure, a note of caution is
perhaps in order. To the extent that the ensuing analysis deals with
individuals in terms of the roles they play within the context of the
family, it is inspired by the tales. Certainly, the notion of role is
more helpful to the study of the folktale than is that of character,
which is more appropriate to the analysis of short stories and
novels. And indeed, from the perspective of the extended family - the
social unit on which our analysis is based - individuals are
important only insofar as they fulfill roles (father, mother, son,
daughter, husband, wife) that help perpetuate the institution of the
family. But because our thesis is that the structural patterns
existing in the family generate the types of behavior we encounter in
the tales, our approach is not governed entirely by the tales. In
other words, we do not, in, our examination of family relationships,
single out only those that occur in the tales. Rather, we address
conflicts in the society that, when translated in terms of the tales,
become the existential realities of the heroines and heroes.
Furthermore, we do not concern ourselves only with situations that
lead to conflict but consider as well those that are conducive to
harmony. The reason is simple and compelling: the family occurs in
all the tales without exception, either as theme or as background.
And because our concern is to explore the relationship between the
tales and the culture, we must examine the whole system of family
relationships in order to provide the necessary cultural background
to the tales. We thus avoid the pitfall of looking at the tales as
mere reflectors of the culture but rather see them as esthetic
transformations - miniature portraits of an existing social reality.

Assuming
for the purposes of the discussion a three-generation extended
family, we will explore each set of relationships within it, both
vertically (parents in relation to children, and vice versa) and
horizontally (in relation to other members of the same set or other
sets). In such a family there will be a patriarch (the grandfather),
a matriarch (his wife), a set of brothers (their sons), a set of
sisters (their daughters), and a set of grandchildren. Because the
family is by definition patrilineal, the set of brothers constitutes
its backbone, as we saw in our discussion of social identity. The
sisters, it is presumed, will marry and move out, but some of them
may remain single and live in their father's house the rest of their
lives. Because the family is patrilocal, wives are introduced into it
as attachments to the sons and share a special category of
relationship - namely, that of husband's brother's wife (silfe ;
plural, salafat). Beginning with the father/son relationship, then,
we shall examine each relationship in turn, focusing first on its
social content and then on its configurations in the tales.

Father/son
relationships, although not as numerous in the tales as relationships
between mothers and daughters, nevertheless form the basis for action
in several (e.g., Tales 5, 6, 30). As we said earlier, this relation
constitutes the ideological basis of the family, the cement that
bonds it being the cultural value of absolute obedience to the
father. Ideally, a son should assert his will as little as possible
in the family, and sons are highly praised for loyalty and obedience
to the father. Yet the interests of the two generations do not always
converge. Conflict can arise, for example, as a result of the
father's polygyny, as in Tale 30, or when the son challenges the
father's authority (Tale 5), or the father abuses his authority (Tale
3). This last tale also illustrates another type of conflict - that
resulting from the father's preference for the sons of one wife over
those of another.

Mother/daughter
relationships occur frequently in the tales (Tales 1, 7, 13, 15, 18,
23, 27, 28, 35) and form the basis for the action in at least four
(Tales 1, 18, 23, 27). Even though technically they belong to
different families (the mother remains part of her father's extended
family), mother and daughter have no cause for conflict; rather,
their interests are mutual and they share a bond of trust (Tales 1,
15, 28). Argument over inheritance - a major cause of conflict among
male members of the family - does not touch them because they do not
usually inherit. Despite the obvious emphasis on having male
offspring, women appreciate their daughters as much as they do their
sons, and childless mothers in the tales wish for daughters far more
frequently than they do for sons (Tales 1, 8, 13, 23). Common sayings
confirm this appreciation - for example, "Girls are kind"
(il-banat hanayin) and "Daughters will help you [literally, 'you
will find them'] in your old age; they will take pity on you"
(il-banat bit-laqihin ib-kabarak, bi-sfaqualek). Whereas a son is
duty bound to take care of his mother, a daughter will do so out of
kindness (Tale 1). A son may neglect his mother for his wife or side
against her in cases of conflict between the two, but a married
daughter, because she lives in her husband's household, never faces
that situation. And although she is not supposed to, because the
household technically belongs to her husband, a married daughter will
frequently send her own daughter with food for her mother,
particularly if the older woman has been neglected by her sons or
brothers.