Faten, 20, and her sister Abir, 19, experienced the tough side of the oriental patriarchal society when they escaped their family home in Damascus and took a trip to Beirut to live and work here after their father tried to force them to marry two of his acquaintances. âThe two men accompanied our dad to our home and they proposed to marry us, but we refused,â Faten told The Daily Star on Friday. âOne of them is Saudi and the other is a Syrian from Aleppo.â
"Dad! He's... ummm... 72 years old!"
"What's that thing on his forehead? It looks like a finger, only it's purple!" |
Faten said she comes from a middle class family of eight. She has one sister who is married to her cousin.
| "Their children all have buck teeth, hemophilia, and the IQ of a brussels sprout!" |
âMy father has been working in Saudi Arabia for the past two decades, but in the last few years, he has been in debt,â Faten said. According to Faten, her father intended to â marry them to well-off men who he thought would give credit to him and salvage his financial situation. For her part, Abir said they tried to invite relatives to intervene and convince her father to drop the idea, âbut to no avail. He told them we were his breeding stock daughters and that nobody has any business with our marriages except him,â Abir said.
| "Butt out, dammit! It's either sell them or sell my car! I still owe on the car." |
âA couple of days ago, he called home saying he was on his way to Damascus coming from Jordan. He also said that the two grooms-to-be were set to meet him and finalize the marriage deal,â she added. âUpon hearing the news, we ran away and came to Lebanon.â
"Faten! We can't let him do this to us!"
"Hell, no! Sometimes that thing on that old man's forehead wiggles when he talks!"
"What can we do?"
"Let's run away to the colonies!"
"Grand idea! I'll get the suitcases!" |
The young lady said she hated her father because he would not let them continue their education. âWhen both of us finished high school, our dad asked our mother to keep us at home and prepare us for marriage by teaching us how to cook and sew.â
| "Yeah. It'll give 'em something to do when they're not popping out babies." |
Abir added that her dad was always afraid that if his girls finished school and went to college, âthey might meet boys, fall in love and marry them.â
| Oh, horrors! Oh, held me, Ethel! |
She also said that her dad always sought to get well-off husbands for his daughters. âNow we are in Lebanon and we donât have many options,â according to Faten, who said that she found a low-paid job and that her sister was still looking for one. âLiving poor and free is much better than living rich and miserable.â |