Memoir Sneak Peek

I was now in my late teen years and on the front steps of womanhood. I was attending a wedding with a big group of women from the family. We were all gathered in the U shaped traditional oriental floor seating, and I started to hear some of the women whisper about how much I've grown and how beautiful I look. Telling my mom that I'm probably going to get married pretty soon. That I  will most likely score a  husband from a very wealthy and prominent family. 

As mentioned in an earlier chapter, arranged marriage is a practiced tradition in Yemen. As women exclusively gather in social settings, the mothers of eligible bachelors scout the room for a potential young wife for their son. If the mother finds a girl she approves of, she then will go back home to her son and describe the physical features of the girl to him in detail. If the son likes what he hears solely from the mother's description, he then discusses a potential marriage proposal with his father. Both the father and the son will evaluate if both families are a good fit for each other in terms of social status, financial status, bloodline status, and reputational status. Once that is cleared out, then the father of the groom-to-be reaches out to the father of the bride-to-be, and starts the marriage proposal process. By the way, this is considered a very modern approach. Some families are more conservative, and would skip these steps completely. For example, if two men get together and decide, hey I have a son and you have a daughter, I think they should get married. They shake hands on it and it's a done deal! In fact, that’s exactly what happened to one of my high school friends and her three other sisters. They were a total of four girls, and her father's friend happened to have four boys. So the two men decided to match the boys with the girls, based on their age, it was one big slam deal. This is by the way a pretty common scenario. So neither the boys nor the girls were asked for their consent. They met for the first time on their wedding day. Some of them kicking and screaming.

As I continued to make appearances in the social scene, mostly weddings and baby showers. The marriage proposals started to come in.  My parents noticed the demand, and wanted to wait for the highest bidder, and he sure did show up. My father received a phone call from the prime minister of the Republic of Yemen one day, asking if he could come visit with him at our home. My father didn't have a clue what was going on and was in shock. He told my mother  about the odd phone call, and my mom knew right away. The women had been talking, as the prime minister's family was part of our close social circle. One of my mother's cousin's is married to one of the sons of the prime minister. In some way, everyone was a distant relative. So there were rumors out there that the wife of the prime minister was shopping around for her son, and she had her eye on me.

The men met and the agreement was made on my behalf. They paid my father a $10,000 dowry. At that time in that part of the world, $10,000 would be equivalent to 1 million dollars in the U.S. today. And just like that, a sale was made and I was to marry  the middle son of the prime minister of the country. They showed me a photo of my husband-to-be. I still remember my initial reaction, how I threw the photo immediately and I screamed no way! This can't be it! I am not marrying this person! No one seemed to take me seriously, my mother said that I would learn to love him as time passed by.  The women of the family would tell me all sorts of stories of how they met their husbands on their wedding nights, and it wasn't love at first sight, but eventually love blossomed between them and now they live happily ever after. Especially after you have kids, they would say. You want to have kids right away. It will add to your value, especially if you have boys. 

During my engagement period, now my fiance, was allowed to come visit me at home, under the supervision of my family. It was my parents' strategic plan to get me to warm up to my husband-to-be, since they knew how I felt about the whole thing. This was considered an outrageously liberal thing to do, we were in fact considered a very open-minded, non-traditional, if you will, family. My father was a diplomat after all and we did travel internationally and have lived amongst western cultures in Europe and America. My father was criticized for his loose approach in raising young girls in Yemen. The fact that he is even allowing such visits from my fiance, raised a few eyebrows. 

The plan did not work, I still emotionally rejected my husband-to-be,  and I was sure to communicate that to both my parents after each visit. My fiance would call my parent’s landline (yes it was that long ago) to ask if he could speak with me, and I would never take those calls. 

Wedding plans kept moving forward regardless of everybody being well aware of how I felt.  My wedding dress was bought for me and all of my new bridal wardrobe, and even lingerie, was selected on my behalf. The ballroom was booked and the caterers prepared the menu. The wedding band played the music as  it was time for me to walk down the aisle. There were about 200 people in attendance, watching me sobb during the entire wedding ceremony, the tears flushing my makeup and dripping down on my poofy wedding dress, a crisp white bouffant gown with a long tail dragging behind me. I had lost sleep and barely ate in the months leading to the wedding, I lost so much weight during that engagement period, that I weighed 85 lb on my wedding day. 

The celebration went on as people ate, danced and took photographs. No one is giving too much attention to my emotional state, just another bride in tears on her wedding day. Probably thinking, she’ll get over it. We all did.  

After the wedding party was over it was time for me to go to my new home and spend my wedding night with my new husband. I was 19 years old at the time, but mentally I was an innocent little child. I had zero sex education and had no idea what to expect. I had vague conversations with some of my married cousins, but sex and how it works, is not a topic that is openly discussed in that culture. All I was told was that it would hurt the first time, and that I would bleed it out but it would get smoother as I practiced. This was a time before the internet was available in Yemen. Movies and any TV broadcasting is usually highly censored and any sex scenes or even kissing scenes are cut out. As young girls the only education we were given, both at school and at home, was to blindly obey our husband and unquestionably perform our wifely duties. 

Virginity testing is a wedding night tradition that has been practiced for centuries in Yemen. In her first few hours as a newlywed, the bride is expected to submit herself to a humiliating ritual. Where both the groom and bride are to consummate their marriage underneath a white bed sheet. Using the bloody white sheet as evidence to prove to both families that the bride is indeed a virgin. Using the blood stains on the sheet from her broken hymen as evidence that the bride is pure and her honor has never been smeared.

Family members from both sides wait outside of the bedroom to check if the 'product' was good or damaged. If she doesn't bleed on her wedding night, she can be subjected to beatings and communal humiliation — in some cases even stoned to death. What is  known as honor killing. Completely neglecting the biological fact that many women are born with very little hymenal tissue to begin with, so it may seem like they don't have a hymen at all. Leading to no bleeding the first time they have sex, eventhough their hymen has never been touched before.

Wedding night virginity testing is practised by many muslim cultures at the behest of tribal elders. Family members — mostly male — oversee the ritual and mete out repercussions if the bride "fails" the test, and does not bleed regardless of her hymen biology. Refusing to participate can make the bride or the family of the bride an outcast amongst society. 

Fortunate enough to have a more liberal-minded family, I was spared this public humiliation. I was however, expected to report back my consummation experience, to my entire family, to his entire family and to the midwife that spent the night in the room next to ours, and yes they all demanded answers about the hymen blood. 

During the wedding night back at the groom’s home, I spent a long time alone on the bathroom floor crying. It felt surreal and I was completely trapped. I wanted to escape, the image of Julia Roberts running in her wedding dress in Runaway Bride came to mind. I even looked at the bathroom window and thought what would happen if I opened it and jumped out? But this is not a Hollywood movie, it was real life and I was in Yemen. Where would I run to? If I run back to my family's house, they would beat me up and God knows what else. If I go to the authorities, they would drag me by my hair back to my husband's home, and call me a whore and a slut that doesn't obey her husband. I have to become resourceful and fend for myself. With tears falling uncontrollably down my face, I begged my new husband to give me some time before consummating the marriage.  I told him that I was not ready and that I was scared, and somehow that miraculously worked, he felt sorry for me and left me alone. 

I spent the next month playing hide and go seek with this man. I spent most of those nights locked up in the bathroom, sleeping on the bathroom floor.  I would come up with all these elaborate excuses and beg him to wait. I’m not feeling well today, tomorrow, I would say, I promise tomorrow is the day. Not having a clue what excuse I would come up with tomorrow. Taking a shower was terrifying, I had to make sure the door was locked when I was changing my clothes. Spending one night at my parent’s house now felt like a vacation. One night away from that pressure. I would talk with my best friend Abeer over the phone for hours telling her how I can never picture myself having sex with this man.  The societal pressure was getting intense, both families were being exceptionally patient with me, and by known tradition I was pushing it. He was also getting pressured to prove his masculinity by consummating the marriage and show the world that he is a real man. Every morning he would get a call to investigate, did you guys do it yet? Are you a man yet? 

It was the 40th day of my arranged married life. I was talking to Abeer over the phone, despair was creeping in at this point and I was starting to reach a breaking point. I was explaining to her how I have run out of excuses and that I feel that the world was closing in on me. I’ll never forget the two words she responded with, “just leave”. Those two magical words, “just leave” kept ringing in my ears. It was one of those moments in life where you just needed someone to give you permission, because you couldn't give it to yourself. It had never crossed my mind that I could “just leave”. Just leave, I wondered. How can I just leave? She said yes, pack your new bridal clothes in a suitcase and take a taxi and go back to your parent’s house. But what would my parents do to me? I thought. What would people say? Abeer and I remained silent over the phone, we didn't have answers to those questions, but we also didn't have any other solution.

Yet that was exactly what I did. The next morning, I packed my clothes in a suitcase and took a taxi back to my parent’s house. My parents were furious with me, I have now brought shame to the family. Married for forty days without consummation, and now asking for a divorce. It was unheard of! They felt humiliated and didn't know what to do with me. My mother told me that I broke my father, that he can't look people in the eye anymore. I was to be completely locked up in my room and isolate from any socializing, so society would forget about me and what I have done. There was a new rumor being spread every single day. one, that I wasn't a virgin and I was away in hiding because I was too scared that I would be found out. Or another, that my husband found me cheating on him with another man. In addition to all that, now I have tainted the reputation of all my younger sisters. Who would want to marry them? The word on the social scene was that we were loose young girls that lived in western countries and became “Americanized”. “That's what you get when you educate women” my uncle would say. 

For the next year there were intense negotiations between the men of both families, for me to either return to my husband or to finalize the divorce. There were family interventions being held, with more than 20 family members of only men, getting together to threaten or what they would call “convince me” to go back. But somehow that tiny step I took that day when packing my stuff and leaving, left a powerful imprint within me. I felt a profound shift. For the first time in my life, I had a taste of my own power and what I am capable of doing. I held my  position and firmly told everyone that I refuse to go back to that marriage, that was not of my choosing to begin with. It was their mess, and theirs to clean up. I made it very clear to everyone that if they were to force me to go back, that I would just come back home running again and repeat the cycle as many times as it took, even if it costs me my life. That I did not care anymore. I think they saw deep in my soul that I was telling the truth, that I was desperate enough to risk my life. 

The prime minister was not used to hearing the word no, especially from, in his eyes, a worthless young woman. So he sent his direct report, the foreign minister, my father's boss, to deliver a message directly to my father. The message was, that if I was to return back to the prime minister's son, my father would be promoted to an ambassador role and will be assigned at the U.S embassy in Washington D.C. Pretty much the hottest ticket in diplomacy town. The most competitive and desired position to hold as a diplomatic official representing the Yemen government. 

I was a 19 year old disempowered and marginalized young woman standing up against the most powerful men in a corrupt country run by dictators. No one was by my side, not even the women in my own family. I did not have any role models to look up to or a support of a community of any sorts. I was being slut shamed and locked in solitary confinement in my own bedroom for one full year. Yet my brave little soul held its ground and said, no way! I demanded to be free and was willing to do whatever it took. Miraculously, I did get the divorce and my father did not get that promotion.

**This was an excerpt from my upcoming memoir. Stay tuned for more..