You Mean You Don't Dream About Your Husband?

Women in Egypt have an obsession with marriage. At least, that's what I've witnessed during my interactions with teachers and random passers-by over the last six weeks. I've already mentioned how unknown women in the street have prayed for me to find a good husband, and other girls from my program have been asked by their students if they were married (luckily the subject has not come up in my class). However, the most marriage-crazed Egyptian I know by far is my teacher at Arab Academy. Though she is sweet and funny, I don't think a single class has gone by without some mention of either the m- or h-word. The other students and I (five girls in total) first noticed her heavy interest in matrimony one day when we were discussing our dreams in class. We said fairly random things (limited by our vocabulary) - I dream about visiting Brazil, I dream about becoming a doctor, etc, and she was shocked that none of us mentioned our future marriages. Then came a few other subtle hints: we learned the word for "bride" and when one of us mispronounced it she laughed and reminded us not to forget such an important word; we were talking about words for different ages (youth versus man versus child, etc), and she was careful to point out the distinction between young woman and spinster, and assured us all that we were in the "young woman" category.

Today, however, was the candied flowers and statuette on the wedding cake, as our reading for the week (from a text book which the teacher did not even choose) was about marriage. The moment she walked into the room, she told us that she was so excited to discuss it with us, beaming the whole time. The text itself was about a family arguing over whether the youngest girl should be allowed to marry a boy that was not as wealthy as her and didn't have as high of an education. The majority of the students agreed that she should be allowed to marry for love, and that the grandmother who argued otherwise in the story was too controlling. For once, I wasn't sure if our opinions shocked and horrified our teacher or touched her more sensitive side. Often she seems scandalized by how liberal our opinions are and our lack of interest in traditional values like marriage (for example we watched the first 30 minutes of the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You," and she could not believe that the portrayal of some aspects of American high schools was accurate). I hope that today her sensitive side won out, and our support of true love made her realize that we as Western girls have some sense of femininity.