Veiled Sentiments

Abu-Lughod begins her analysis of love relationships in Awlad ‘Ali society by reminding readers that love relationships, as related to sexual relationships, “pose such a threat to the system [of Bedouin society] that they are the object of stringent control through symbolic manipulation” (208). Since modesty is a “moral virtue [… ,] the ultimate one” for women (208), then denial of sexual and romantic interest is critical to the maintenance of respect for people of all genders.

Although love relationships must be sidelined in public life, they are still a central focus because they are the object of greatest concern. They are also a central focus of poems: Abu-Lughod recognizes romantic love as the dominant theme of ghinnāwas. While “ordinary discourse” speaks pejoratively, if at all, of romantic love, “contradictory responses […] [of] poetic discourse of attachment and deep feeling” follow it (209). Thus, reactions to the ideas or events of love mirror reactions to death, for example, as discussed in “Honor and Poetic Vulnerability.”

Ghinnāwas often take up “the popular cultural theme of thwarted love,” but they are also the currency with which lovers, both in stories and in real life, “speak to each other […] [and] express their longing” (209). Affection between married couples can vary, as Abu-Lughod explains in the story of a young woman who actively resists marriage to a man she already knew and did not want to marry (as detailed in “Honor and the Virtues of Autonomy”). Although opportunities for adolescent girls and boys to meet were decreasing at the time of writing, Abu-Lughod writes that “romances and infatuations used to be prevalent” (210), and resistance to or unhappiness in marriage often occurred because one of the married parties preferred another partner.

“Love matches” are rare in Bedouin communities (210), which seek to keep family and kinship relationships at the head of social culture. Both men and women advise against love matches, either to cement their power (for men) or because women assume that a love match will result in a lack of protection from one’s kin.

Even the Haj, with whom Abu-Lughod lives, attests to multiple romances across his life, each “thwarted” by the girl’s paternal first cousin, who is expected to step in and prevent the marriage by marrying her instead. This trope recurs across Bedouin storytelling culture, in both fictional and factual accounts. Abu-Lughod relates the story of the Haj’s first love, at the age of 17, and the lengths taken to prevent marriage and “indecent” love between the two of them. They wrote poems to one another, which were “so beautiful” that his father often asked others to recite them for his enjoyment (213). The Haj retells some of his ghinnāwas, written about different women across the years, to Abu-Lughod, and they are some of her evidence that poetry “is clearly the medium through which sentiments of love and longing are expressed” (213).

The Haj’s pining, Abu-Lughod makes sure to point out, is not the norm, as “most people” in a Bedouin community “lead less dramatic lives” (215). To illustrate a more realistic scenario, Abu-Lughod tells the story of a young woman who, though she demonstrates exemplary ḥasham concerning her arranged marriage, also pens poetry that “[reveals] shifting feelings about the marriage” (215).

This young woman slowly reveals, in private, her discomfort in her marriage, only attesting to it around close female relatives and working to sustain her image of ḥasham as much as she can. But one day, while helping Abu-Lughod interpret some wedding ghinnāwas, she begins to sing her own. They surround her unhappiness with polygyny and her own polygynous situation. She admits that she is singing about herself. Through the ghinnāwas, she admits “that she had wanted to marry another man” (218). Later, she will not repeat the admission. Instead, she tries the technique of “[presenting] herself as a modest and asexual woman, professing a horror of sex” (219).

Eventually, she ran away from home and, upon her return, never explained why she had left. But “through her poems,” people found emotions that they “took to be the truth” about her flight (220). Although the young woman worked as hard as she could to maintain a pattern of public behavior befitting proper submission, her churning poems revealed her unhappiness. What matters, Abu-Lughod points out, is that others in her community believed that “the poems reflected her reactions more accurately and dependably than did her ordinary behavior and conversation” (221). This exhibits how they are aware of the division between public (social) and private (poetic) discourse.

Abu-Lughod writes that first loves are not the only distractions from Awlad ‘Ali marriages. From her observations, many first marriages break up quickly as most people settle with their second spouses. Even if spouses grow close over time, their relationships tend to focus on the material; in public, of course, modesty demands that they remain detached and disconnected. Abu-Lughod observes that around one-third of Awlad ‘Ali marriages dissolve. When this occurs, the couple similarly retains its modest, stoic behavior. In cases of divorce between two people who have been together for a long time, this stoicism can mask deep emotions, articulated best through poetry.

As Abu-Lughod provides examples of such marriages, she highlights the “tone of aggressive nonchalance” adopted by both men and women when they speak not only about divorce but also about marriage (224). Yet in the poems they sing, the same divorced person may express a deep and contrasting sadness. But if these emotions are expressed “in the inappropriate medium,” relatives will treat them with “sharp criticism” to remind them that such behavior is a “transgression” (228). In the end, the system of modesty remains firmly entrenched.

Sharing of one’s husband, or polygyny, can be difficult for Bedouin women, but they are not to display any negative feelings about the prospect. When a man takes a second wife, his first wife is expected to feign indifference, and she will be teased if she suggests anything other than indifference. Through multiple examples, Abu-Lughod illustrates that polygyny can result in intense emotion; when women sing poems expressing that pain, her close family and friends may join her, “spontaneously” voicing poems articulating how they think she may feel. Poems can articulate the thoughts that would damage reputations if voiced in person.