Speak Bird Speak Again (7 page)

Mothers
are also expected to be kind to their daughters and make a special
effort to keep in touch with them, as we see dearly in Tale 27. They
play a major role in their daughters' marriages as well (Tale 23).
Moreover, because mother and daughter fulfill many family functions
together, they form a natural unit within the family. One of the most
important of these functions involves locating a bride for the son
(brother), as in Tale 21, and providing him with a critique
(bunuqduha) of the intended's deportment and character. If she is
from a different village and they have not seen her before, they
might even give her some simple tests, such as threading a needle (to
test eyesight) and cracking a nut with her teeth - as we see in an
exaggerated form in Tale 12. By and large, the tales accurately
reflect the mother/daughter relationship as it is in life.

It
would be difficult to conjecture the extent to which the mother/son
relationship as portrayed in the tales reflects the actual situation.
Certainly this relationship is depicted throughout the tales as
extremely complex. In Tale 2 a mother kills her daughter-in-law and
pretends to be her sons wife, and in Tale 4 a son sends his mother to
certain death because she wants to marry at an advanced age. In Tale
22 a son tears his mother to pieces, along with the children she had
borne to a giant. Obviously these things do not go on in real life;
the tales must therefore reflect the emotional complexity of the
relationship rather than its social content. Although there are
psychological and mythological explanations for this complexity - a
favorite theme in all literature - we will explore it in terms of the
parameters already established. Despite the closeness that should
characterize the relationship, the contradictory criteria for
authority do cause contention. A son, particularly the eldest son, is
second in command to his father and can therefore wield power based
on both his gender and his position in the family. The mother, in
contrast, commands respect and obedience by virtue of her age and her
position as mother. As long as the son is young and under her
protection, no problems arise. But as he approaches manhood and is
pulling away from the sphere of his mother to that of his father
(Tale 21), the potential for conflict increases. A son must start
asserting his authority early in order to establish himself as a man,
and a mother who impedes this process is bound to cause problems.
Furthermore, a son in some respects plays the role of husband to his
own mother, because he must guard her honor. Her sexuality, then,
especially if she acts on it as in the tales cited above, is a
certain source of conflict.

Other
aspects of motherhood are also significant in the tales, such as the
role of the stepmother (Tales 7, 9, 28) and the significance of the
process of adoption by a ghouleh, or feminine ghoul (Tales 10, 22);
these aspects will be discussed in the footnotes and afterwords to
the tales.

The
father/daughter relationship is extremely important in the structure
of the family, because it is the father (or more accurately, the
patriarch) who gives his daughter in marriage, thereby establishing a
relationship of nasab (in-laws) with another family. She remains a
member of her father's family for the rest of her life and does not
take her husband's name even after marriage. The father and his sons
thus remain responsible for the daughter throughout her life, whether
she remains single and lives under their roof or marries and moves
out. The tales (5, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 22, 28, 34, 44) present this
relationship as one of great complexity, which does not necessarily
reflect the way it is managed in life. Neither by virtue of her
gender, age, or position in the family is the daughter endowed with
any authority. Some of the tales (5, 12, 15, 22, 44) confirm the
image of a carefree daughter able to manipulate her father into
acceding to her wishes, even those that go against social convention,
as in Tale

12. In
Tale 14 the father interprets his relationship to his daughter as one
of ownership - he wants to give her away in marriage, but to himself.
Although this desire, like some of those discussed in the mother/son
relationship, is susceptible to psychoanalytic and other types of
explanation, the root cause of the conflict in the first part of the
tale stems from the father's overstepping the bounds of authority
that should regulate his behavior toward his daughter.

Natural
brothers from the same mother generally maintain a harmonious
relationship; they have grown up together, and by the time they are
adults they have found their rightful places in the family (Tale 15).
Because they share gender and position in the family, the criterion
of age becomes all important in regulating their mutual
relationships. As a result, the youngest brother must submit to the
authority of his older brothers, who have priority over him in every
respect (Tale 8). They get married before him and dispose of the
collective property of the family according to their own needs. By
the time the father dies and the extended family begins to break up,
the older brothers have children of their own and have allocated to
themselves enough of that collective property to be well established.
Thus, when the family property is formally divided the younger
brother may not obtain his fair share, and he must struggle on his
own - although his older brothers may help him out as a favor.

In
light of our thesis that the Palestinian folktale is a woman's art
form, it is interesting to note that conflict over inheritance among
natural brothers is not an explicit theme in these tales, even though
in the society stories concerning unfair division of property are
remembered for generations. Perhaps this is because conflict over the
father's inheritance, which is one of the major causes of strife
among natural brothers, is an exclusively male concern. Nevertheless,
instances of conflict among half-brothers abound in these tales
(e.g., Tales 3, 5, 6, 7), here because of polygyny, the father
preferring the sons of one wife over those of the other. The
situation at the opening of Tale 5, where the king treats the son of
one wife gently while abusing the son of the other, is a dramatic
representation of what actually does take place. In life, people
understand such treatment; the tales, however, which always vindicate
the youngest son against his older brothers, show it to be an
injustice.

The
relationship among sisters is accurately reflected in the tales (10,
12, 20), though of course not down to the smallest detail. Until they
are married, sisters live together in one household, each having
established her place and relationship to the rest of the family. The
most sensitive question among them, and indeed, the major issue in
the lives of all Palestinian women, is that of marriage. Thus, all
three of the tales cited show conflict among sisters as being caused
by jealousy. In Tale 10, the strife arises from jealousy over the
youngest sister's marriage to the son of the king; in Tale 12
likewise, the older sisters are jealous of the youngest one, who has
a secret lover; and in Tale go the improvident older sisters end up
punishing the younger one. The tales derive from their folk narrative
form - and in this respect they do not accurately reflect the culture
- a high degree of violence inflicted by sisters on one another.
People do, however, recognize that jealousy and envy are potent
motivating forces toward evil, and they attribute the power of the
evil eye to these forces.

Between
brother and sister the relationship is warm and harmonious. It is
certainly the relationship most idealized in the tales (7, 9, 10, 31,
42, and even 8). Generally, the sister's attitude toward her brother
is one of love and respect, and his to her is one of lifelong concern
and protectiveness. An older sister may exercise a nourishing and
maternal role toward her brother (Tales 7, 31), particularly if the
mother is dead (Tale 9); whether younger or older, she willingly
serves him and his family, moving into his house if she remains
unmarried after the parents die. Such a relationship is important
because her brother remains her protector (sanad, izwe) for the rest
of her life. As we noted earlier, a bride's position in the extended
family of her husband is one of relative weakness at first, but if
she comes into her new situation with a strong and supportive set of
brothers behind her, she can in fact enjoy a certain sense of power.
A bride with no brothers is pitied; she is considered to be "cut
off" (maqtua), with no one to stand up for her in time of need.

Despite
the potential for harmony between brother and sister, however,
conflict is possible in several areas. The most important of these
concerns the issue of sexual honor, as we see clearly in Tale 42,
where the sister must run away from her brothers in order to save her
life. Sexual honor is also addressed in Tale 8, although obliquely,
as we explain in the footnotes. A brother is bound to protect his
sister's sexual honor, and she in turn can ruin her own reputation
and that of her family through indiscreet behavior. Another possible
area of conflict involves inheritance. Although entitled by Islamic
law (saria) to half what a man inherits, women usually forgo this
right in favor of their brothers. If she marries, the sister will
share in her husband's wealth - or poverty (Tale 43); and if she
remains single, her father or brothers will provide for her. A
sister, however, can pose a threat to her brothers by demanding her
share of the inheritance, thereby, if she is married, transferring
family property to others who may be enemies. (Although it is not
attested in the tales, the issue of inheritance is socially very
significant, for it constitutes yet another way - economics - in
which women are turned into the Other.) A third source of conflict
might lie in a hostile relationship between a sister and her
brother's wife, as in Tale 31; yet regardless of how much tension
exists between the two women, a sister will never break her
relationship with her brother, even if he wrongs her (Tales 8, 31,
42).

Because
the wives of brothers (salafat) may come from different extended
families, and possibly from divergent social backgrounds, their
mutual relationships form a potentially great source of conflict,
both for themselves and for those around them. In this respect the
relationship resembles that of co-wives; and indeed, the two sets are
structurally similar. Because Levirate marriage is practiced in
Palestine, salafat can become co-wives. Furthermore, because marriage
to a man is also marriage into a family, all the brothers' wives come
into the same family from the outside, and each must find her own
place in it, competing for the favor and attention of all her
in-laws. A clever woman (malune) who gets along well with her
husband's family (daramha - literally, "her uncle's
household"), like the heroine of Tale 15, is much admired in the
society.

The
causes for jealousy and hostility among salafat are many. Work
distribution becomes a source of friction when one of the wives is
perceived to be doing less than her fair share. Even a pregnant woman
who is close to term may be criticized for not doing enough; and
after the birth, her sisters-in-law are watching for her to resume
her duties. If after forty days she has not yet started working her
full load, she will definitely hear about it. Her husband could add
fuel to the conflict by taking his wife's side against her salafat .
The only example we have in the tales of this kind of relationship
combines it with a sister relationship - that is, two sisters are
married to two brothers, a combination that does occur in actuality
(Tale 43). In this tale the transformation of social reality into
fiction and its adaptation to the pattern of a widely known folktale
can be clearly seen (cf. Tale 28). Again recalling our observation
that the Palestinian folktale is a woman's art form, we note that
here the protagonists are not male, as is typical in other
traditions, but female, with maleness retained only in the title.
Moreover, this tale collapses two sets of conflicting situations into
one. By marrying two sisters to two brothers, it not only puts them
in conflict in their roles as salafat but also forces them to compare
their respective situations. And by making one husband rich and the
other poor, it exacerbates their jealousy and conflict as sisters.
Thus the tale puts the sisters into a situation where they are as
closely related as possible but the potential for conflict is at a
maximum level.

The
conflict-ridden relationship between a mother-in-law (hama) and her
sons wife (kinne) is of course proverbial, and the Palestinian
context is no exception. Tale 34, for example, presents the husband
as a ghoul and his mother and sister as ghoulehs, none of whom
possess any redeeming features whatsoever. As we have seen, until she
has acquired a daughter-in-law a woman in Palestinian society has no
adults over whom she can exercise authority. Daughters-in-law
(kanayin), who may be in conflict with each other as salafat, always
unite against the mother-in-law when the occasion calls for it. The
image we have of the mother-in-law in the tales, however, although
usually negative, is not entirely that of an oppressive tyrant. In
Tale 2, for example, the harm the mother inflicts on her sons wife is
obviously due to sexual jealousy, whereas in Tale 7 the mother and
the sister fear that the wife will replace them in the son's
affections. And Tale 21 shows us a completely different facet of this
relationship as the bride, whom her husband has shunned out of fear,
conspires with his mother to bring him back home.