Living With the Bedouin: The Women

The women cook, clean and rear the children. The home is their domain. Once the cleaning is done they lounge on the mats and pillows filling the living room. On cold days they gather around the gas heater. On all days they watch television - music videos, Arabic soap operas, Ugly Betty, all that satellite TV has to offer. They may or may not wear their head scarf.

When a man comes - husband, brother, nephew, uncle - they drop everything. Tea is prepared and if he's hungry, food. A woman is on call. At a moments notice she prepares pita, hummus, baked beans, sardines, fried cauliflower and other Bedouin standards (most originating from a can). She is somewhat of a servant. She hopes that her husband is kind and love is present.

My final day in the village I spent with Menal, an extremely mature and open-minded 17-year-old. I had enjoyed her company tremendously throughout my stay with the Bedouins. Her English was near perfect and her smile contagious.

Menal had just been proposed to by one of the boys in the village. By this I mean her father had been asked for her hand. She told me that he wasn't too attractive or smart. Despite her father's wishes, she would refuse. She told her father that she would marry him if he demanded but would leave after the wedding and divorce (more common than one might think). She would wait for love and for a man who would at least agree with, if not share, her vision for a Western-style monogamous relationship with 1 to 3 children, not 8 to 10. Menal's interaction with tourists and time working on an archaeological dig with Brown University students had rubbed off on her.

Supposedly there are 23 Western women who have married Bedouin men and live in the village. I saw only one and hadn't even seen Barbara (the Dutch girlfriend from the first night camping in Little Petra) for four days. I had seen Tofik, her "boyfriend" recklessly driving her rental car, screeching around corners and crashing into curbs. Even the foreigners seemed to be treated as second-class and confined to the home unless otherwise instructed. I asked Menal about these women whom I couldn't get my head around. She said that many, but not all were treated less than favorably. She quickly and wisely noted that many of these women were older (35-45) and unmarried, often not very physically attractive. This was, of course, a generalization, but an interesting and not too unexpected observation. It seemed that, understandably, relations were not easy between the Bedouin women and the tourists turned tarts...I mean, wives.

Neither seem to have an enviable life by Western standards. While the Westerners are not to be seen, some of the Bedouin women go to Petra and work their small curio stands. Still, most of their activities are dictated by their huspands, fathers and cultural convention. The men are ultimately expected to provide shelter, money and food, but seem to have little other responsibility. They come and go as they please. The women are tied to the home (or other location approved by the man of the house) and are generally left with few choices - sardines or humus, music videos or Oprah.