2008-02-01 Hmmmm

This started off as an excellent book which is about a Moroccan girl's upbringing in a harem (not as the West envisages a harem). According to the author, a harem is apparently a place where women, whether divorced or married, young or old, are kept locked in the men's household, unable to go out, even to shop for essentials, unless given permission and (if they are) accompanied by a chaperone. These women apparently spend their days analysing what life must be like outside the harem and dreaming of what it must be like to live a free life. Some women long for the embrace of their husband, but have to wait their turn because their husband has several (or even hundreds) of co-wives so they must wait and take their turn to spend a night with their husband. This book was a must read at the beginning but half way through concentrates on the women speculating on tales of women who tried to make their mark in liberating women in the middle east, whether real or fictional and as such becomes not so much Fatima's memoirs but an analysis (whether real or mythical) of women of bygone eras.