by Folktales
Father/son relationships, although not as numerous in the tales as relationships between mothers and daughters, nevertheless form the basis for action in several (e.g., Tales 5, 6, 30). As we said earlier, this relation constitutes the ideological basis of the family, the cement that bonds it being the cultural value of absolute obedience to the father. Ideally, a son should assert his will as little as possible in the family, and sons are highly praised for loyalty and obedience to the father. Yet the interests of the two generations do not always converge. Conflict can arise, for example, as a result of the father's polygyny, as in Tale 30, or when the son challenges the father's authority (Tale 5), or the father abuses his authority (Tale 3). This last tale also illustrates another type of conflict - that resulting from the father's preference for the sons of one wife over those of another.
Mother/daughter relationships occur frequently in the tales (Tales 1, 7, 13, 15, 18, 23, 27, 28, 35) and form the basis for the action in at least four (Tales 1, 18, 23, 27). Even though technically they belong to different families (the mother remains part of her father's extended family), mother and daughter have no cause for conflict; rather, their interests are mutual and they share a bond of trust (Tales 1, 15, 28). Argument over inheritance - a major cause of conflict among male members of the family - does not touch them because they do not usually inherit. Despite the obvious emphasis on having male offspring, women appreciate their daughters as much as they do their sons, and childless mothers in the tales wish for daughters far more frequently than they do for sons (Tales 1, 8, 13, 23). Common sayings confirm this appreciation - for example, "Girls are kind" (il-banat hanayin) and "Daughters will help you [literally, 'you will find them'] in your old age; they will take pity on you" (il-banat bit-laqihin ib-kabarak, bi-sfaqualek). Whereas a son is duty bound to take care of his mother, a daughter will do so out of kindness (Tale 1). A son may neglect his mother for his wife or side against her in cases of conflict between the two, but a married daughter, because she lives in her husband's household, never faces that situation. And although she is not supposed to, because the household technically belongs to her husband, a married daughter will frequently send her own daughter with food for her mother, particularly if the older woman has been neglected by her sons or brothers.
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 re
presentation 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.
In contrast to the mother-in-law's presumed hostility, the father-in-law's attitude toward his sons wife is expected to be warm and protective. It would not be unusual in a domestic quarrel for the wife to appeal to her father-in-law ("uncle") against his own son. From the father-in-law's perspective, unlike that of his wife and daughters, the son's wife is not divisive; rather, by providing the family with children, she contributes materially to its growth and therefore its strength. In Tale 21, the king blesses his daughter-in-law's efforts to bring his son back home. He should treat her as if she were his own daughter, for he is responsible to the head of her family in case of conflict involving her. If a woman is unhappy with her husband's treatment of her, her family complains not to her husband but to his father. Indeed, the tales present pictures of some complexity in this relationship between the patriarch and his sons wife. Tale 32, for example, would be totally obscure if divorced from this social context. The father in that tale perceives his first daughter-in-law as a jinni, presumably because she has enchanted his son and keeps him all to herself and away from his filial obligations; the attention the father and his wife lavish on the obedient second daughter-in-law, in contrast, is meant
to exemplify the harmony that can prevail when a sons wife subserves her will to theirs.
The relationship between the bride's father and her husband is a critical factor in two tales (12, 44), and it assumes secondary importance in a third (Tale 22). In some respects Tale 12 is the counterpart of Tale 32, for now we have the son-in-law enchanting the daughter and taking her away from her father. Here also, the tale would remain somewhat obscure if we did not take this relationship into account. The father's forgetfulness in bringing his favorite daughter the bird she had asked for indicates his unwillingness to part with her. Hence the husband in this tale, like the wife in Tale 32, is given the shape of a magical and utterly remote creature. In Tale 44, the king has a daughter but no sons; his interest in a son-in-law, then, represents interest in a son to make his heir. Finally, the second half of Tale 22 also takes for its theme the relationship between father and son-in-law; there, the king ostracizes his daughter for marrying against his will. In life, such an action could lead to a permanent rupture, but in the tale the father is ultimately reconciled with his daughter and accepts his son-in-law as his own.
We now turn to the relationship between husband and wife. From our discussion thus far it should be clear why this is the most prominent relationship in the tales: it occurs as a theme in nearly all of them and provides the basis for the plot in several (Tales 24-27). Marriage is a threshold event in a woman's life; not only does she form a lifelong bond, but she moves out of her father's house as well. This journey to the husband's household constitutes the plot of several tales, including 7, 12, 13, 14, and, most notably, 18. For the male too, marriage, although not so traumatic, is nevertheless an important event, bringing great responsibilities, some of which he may not yet be ready, or willing, to shoulder (Tale 21). Because marriage creates an alliance between two extended families, it complicates the system of relationships in the society. It is generally acknowledged that the relationship of nasab (in-laws) is never an easy one; indeed, it could be fraught with problems throughout, from the early stages of familiarity through, perhaps, the husband's taking another wife later. Marriages are usually arranged between socially equal members of extended families, who at the same time are likely to be adversaries competing with each other for power and influence in the society.